AceShowbiz - Soul sensation Adele got a bargain deal when she hired Ryan Tedder to collaborate on her second album "21" - because he offered to work for free. The Grammy-winning British star traveled to America to work with superproducer Rick Rubin on the follow-up to her smash-hit debut 19, and after a bizarre meeting with Tedder in a Los Angeles hotel elevator, the pair decided to write songs together.

And Adele was astonished when the OneRepublic frontman insisted he didn't want to be paid for his efforts. She tells Britain's Daily Star, "I loved working with Ryan. And he came cheap. I didn't pay him. He said he was a big fan and that was it. I'm very lucky. I met him in a lift one night in L.A."

"I was holding 100 balloons, so the lift was full, but he could hear me laughing from inside. He knew it was me because he recognized my... laugh. He got in the lift and started popping all the balloons and said we had to work together. We met again in London and I started telling him everything."