Lionel Richie to collaborate with Adele

CEBU, Philippines – Lionel Richie, the 66-year-old Grammy-winning artist, who enjoyed tremendous success with his own single called “Hello” in the early ‘80s, is thrilled about the newfound attention the decades-old song has received since Adele released her record-breaking track in October.

After the song’s debut, a video mashup of the British crooner hanging up the phone on Richie immediately went viral, poking fun at the two hits’ similar set of lyrics.

“Wasn’t that hilarious?” he said to E! News. “Someone said to me, ‘Lionel, Adele did ‘Hello’ and I said, ‘Retirement. I am done’...Then, all of a sudden I realized this is not ‘Hello.’ She just used ‘Hello.’”

The singing sensation has no hard feelings about the similar titles. In fact, he’s happy they both come up in the same sentence.

“You have no idea how many people called me on the phone and said, ‘Are you going to let her get away with that? She stole ‘Hello!’ Then I said I don’t own ‘Hello.’ I own the melody,” he clarified. “But, what it did was it blew everything to the ceiling. The conversation came up. If you say Adele and you say Lionel or Lionel and Adele...that’s the best pairing you could have!”

Luckily for fans of the mashup, the new duo is already cooking up a collaboration for a future date.

“We are going to be doing something together—that’s already almost in the works. I can almost say that we are talking, but right now she has a mission,” Richie said. “Her mission is to get her record out and go on tour, so until she finishes that cycle, that won’t happen just yet.”