Christina Aguilera turned down by band playing in bar because frontman 'didn't recognise her'

Christina Aguilera asked to join a local band on stage during a recent stay in New Orleans – only to be turned down.

The singer was listening to Claude Bryant and the All Stars, a reggae band that regularly plays at Cafe Negril on Frenchmen Street, as reported by Billboard.

Aguilera eventually approached Bryant, the act's frontman, to offer to join the group for a song, but Bryant refused because – as it later turned out – he didn't recognise the pop star.

A social media video shows Aguilera, wearing a baseball cap and a jersey, approaching Bryant, requesting to join him on stage.

But she's then seen saying: "You don't want that? It's OK, I don't have to sing."

The Twitter user who shared the clip said he was at a New Orleans bar with his wife when Aguilera came in and asked the band if she could sing a tune.

"Nope! As if she was denied?! That would have been so cool to see her sing," the Twitter user, going by @drMediaPro on the platform, added.

Aguilera even addressed the incident on stage on Saturday, the night after the encounter.

She can be heard in a video shared by Twitter user Marchaund Jones telling the crowd: “I go to this little bar and there’s this live band playing, and I was with a couple of my dancers and the whole thing and I was just like, ‘Let me just get up on stage and jam with this guy. Maybe I’ll sing a song or whatever, it'll be fun.'"

The singer adds: “He would not give me the mic. He was, like, a little older and he was just like, he was not feeling it. He was not gonna give up his mic. I was like, ‘Oh, I just want to come up.'"

According to Aguilera, the band's frontman asked: "What, are you gonna dance for me?" to which she replied: "No, I just want to sing a song with you."

The singer then makes light of the incident and says she decided to save all of her energy for her own show the next day.

Bryant has since apologised to Aguilera, saying he was "so sorry" for failing to recognise her.

"I didn't recognise her because she had a cap over here head and over her eyes," he told WGNO.

"She was in a jersey. She didn't introduce herself to me, but she had very soft hands and that got my attention."

Bryant said he asked Aguilera if she wanted to dance and that she told him she wanted to sing, at which point he started playing the beginning of a song.

Aguilera's bodyguard "picked her up off the stage" and the singer left, according to Bryant.

In any case, Bryant said he would be happy to sing any sing with Aguilera and urged the singer to come back for a fresh start.