Nelly says Taylor Swift paid him $50,000 “in a McDonald’s bag” for his surprise appearance at her 2011 gig.
The 51-year-old hip-hop star has recalled his performance at a show in Houston during the 36-year-old singer’s Speak Now World Tour 15 years ago, and how she got around having a small budget at the time.
Appearing on The Breakfast Club, Nelly said: “I’ve known her for a long time. Her pops, her management. I’m gonna tell you what really threw me, right?
“She called me one night, just out of the blue, and said, ‘Yo, Nelly, listen, me and my friends, we made a routine to Hot in Herre last night and I wanna ask you a really big favor.’
“Now, I’m in St. Louis, and she’s in Houston. She said, ‘I got two shows in Houston tomorrow and the next day. Can you come down to Houston and just perform it? I don’t wanna disrespect you. I don’t really have a budget like that.’
“Now, listen to her. She says she doesn’t really have a budget. But she said, ‘What I will do is send my plane. I’ll get your room and all of that. And we only have like $50,000.’ I said, ‘Can you put that in a McDonald’s bag?’
“I said, ‘But I would’ve done it for free.'”
The Shake It Off hitmaker sent him a G5 private jet to take him to and from the show.
Nelly added: “The plane picked me and the kids up and flew us down to Houston because she was doing three or four nights at the baseball stadium, with 56,000 people.
“They had them rammed in there! We did it, and she was like, ‘Yo, three minutes, three minutes!’ Her [manager Robert Allen] comes out and tosses me a McDonald’s bag with $50,000 in cash.”
The Dilemma hitmaker noted that “the money wasn’t really the issue”.
He continued: “But she was just like, ‘Yo, the jet is there whenever you’re ready.’ And she got us the presidential suite right there.
“I think it was the Four Seasons, right there by the stadium. Had the whole top floor.
“We never even saw the room. We went from the show right back to the airport, or whatever the case may be.”
The pair performed Just A Dream together at the show, while he would later join her for a rendition of Hey Porsche on the Red Tour in 2013, and Hot In Herre on the 1989 World Tour two years later.