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She sang into a broom. Sixty years later, she's still going.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ยท 26 May 2026

Patti LaBelle turns 82 on Sunday, and she is spending the decade, by her own description, "living it down, not up." That mostly means Saturday night card games at her home in Philadelphia, where she grew up as a shy girl named Patsy Holt who sang into a broom in her bedroom. "How easy is it to play cards and take other folks' money?" she told CBS Sunday Morning. "That's what I do, and I love it." Six decades into her career, the Godmother of Soul is still performing. She said her voice can rap and can do opera, on a good day. She remembers the record executive who renamed her LaBelle, meaning beautiful, while calling her "quite ugly." She kept the name and got her nose done, and nothing else. "It's never my last show," she said. "I'll be singing until I can't no more."

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