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Rumor has is it, 71-year-old Patti LaBelle has a new boo…and it’s her 41-year-old drummer Eric Seats.

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The Daily Mail reports:

She’s got countless hits to her name, a successful line of sweet potato pies and now the Godmother of Soul has another reason to sing – she’s found new love – 30 years her junior.

Patti LaBelle, 71, is dating her 41-year-old drummer Eric Seats, Daily Mail Online can exclusively reveal. The two have been seeing each other for the past year and a half.

‘She tried to keep it quiet, but everyone around her has figured things out now. She’s completely smitten with him and they spend so much time together,’ said the source.

The music legend and Seats first met when he was hired to be her drummer several years ago.

LaBelle was just coming out of a bad relationship, but thought Seats was attractive and she started to chat with him after her shows.

‘It wasn’t long before he was helping her heal her broken heart,’ the source revealed.

‘He made her feel at ease and she loved that he had such a vast experience working in the music business.

Seats packed up and moved across the country just to be with her. He left Los Angeles a year ago for Philadelphia – where LaBelle is based.

‘Patti was so happy he moved to Philly with her. She loves having him with her all the time. She even has a big portrait of the two of them up on her wall in her bedroom,’ told the source.

LaBelle has two Grammys and two American Music Awards for her R&B hits like ‘If Only You Knew’ and ‘The Right Kinda Lover’ and Seats has his own impressive resume.

He has toured with Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Timbaland and Missy Elliott, in addition to producing songs for Destiny’s Child, Aaliyah, 702 and Tank.

‘Everything they do now, they do it together. She hasn’t seemed this happy in years. Apparently those who know him, say he’s always dated older women,’ said a source.

While the two seem very happy, at least one person isn’t – Labelle’s 42-year-old son, Zuri Edwards.

A source tells Daily Mail Online he doesn’t really like the idea of his mother dating a man a year younger than he is.

‘Not only is Zuri her son, but he’s her manager as well. He saw how hard she took her last breakup with the much-younger man she was seeing and just doesn’t want to see his mom hurt again,’ explained the source.

Patti was once engaged to Otis Williams of The Temptations and was married to former school teacher turned her manager, Armstead Edwards for 31 years. They divorced in 2000.

Zuri is their biological son, but Patti raised four other children as well. She adopted her sister’s son and daughter after she died of cancer and her neighbor’s two boys after her neighbor died of pneumonia.

Zuri’s resistance to this new relationship hasn’t slowed Patti down at all. The couple spent all of the holidays together. Most recently, New Year’s Eve – when the two had a quiet dinner together with friends before Seats left to go on tour in Japan with jazz artist Lalah Hathaway.

During Christmas, he and LaBelle spent three days with songwriter Denise Rich on her yacht in the Bahamas.

See more photos below.

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(Photo Source: Eric Seats Facebook)

Is Patti LaBelle Dating 41-Year-Old Drummer Eric Seats? [PHOTOS]  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com