Etta James is trying to laugh off her comments about not standing Beyonce and saying she wanted to give her a butt whipping for performing her song "At Last" at the Presidential Inauguration.
Is anyone buying that Etta James didn't say what she truly felt about the Queen Bee?
Listen to the TMZ audio if you missed it. UPDATED VIDEO ADDED.
Etta James insists her recent comments about "whipping Beyonce's ass" were just a joke.
The legendary soul star was addressing an audience while on stage in Seattle last week when she threatened to "ass whip" the Crazy in Love songstress after the singer covered her hit song At Last during President Barack Obama's Inauguration Ball on January 20.
"You guys know your President, right? The one with the big ears? He ain't my President. He had that woman singing my song. She gonna get her ass whipped," Etta told the crowd.
"The great Beyonce, she ain't mine. I can't stand Beyonce.
"She had no business up there singing on a big ol’ President day, singing my song that I've been singing forever."
But James, 71, insists she was just adding a little comedy to her routine.
She tells the New York Daily News, "I didn't really mean anything.
"Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude. ... That's probably what went into it. I was feeling left out of something that was basically mine, that I had done every time you look around."
"Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle," she said. "They were all laughing, and it was funny."
She said the jokes were "not from a vicious place."
And James isn't worried about offending America's new President with comments about his ears. "He's got other stuff [to worry about] besides Etta James," she said. source
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