Apparently the saying “once a diva, always a diva” really is true. Okay I don’t know that that’s actually a saying, but based on some Grammy awards behavior, it should be. Not only did singer Natalie Cole go off on Amy Winehouse for winning five awards, which she called “undeserved,” but now Aretha Franklin has gone off on Beyonce Knowles for calling Tina Turner “The Queen.” Apparently Aretha is “The Queen” and to call anyone else such a royal term is absolute heresy.

When Aretha Franklin is unhappy, she does not mince words. On Tuesday, the longtime Queen of Soul slammed Beyonce Knowles’ intro to Tina Turner at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, in which Knowles called Turner, not Franklin, “the queen.”

“I am not sure of whose toes I may have stepped on or whose ego I may have bruised between the Grammy writers and Beyonce,” Franklin said in a statement issued by her publicist. “However, I dismissed it as a cheap shot for controversy.”

[From the AP]

Um, Aretha, this is the biggest deal in your world, not the world. No one else noticed. Come on, issuing a press release? Doesn’t that make you the one who’s trying to stir up controversy? I think everyone was way too busy focusing on your outfit, which was about five inches south of where the rest of us would have liked it.

I don’t know Beyonce, but instinct tells me she didn’t actually write the little into speech. The sentence in question was, “Ladies and gentlemen. Stand on your feet and give it up for the queen.” While Aretha has long been known as the Queen of Soul, Beyonce just called Tina Turner the queen. She could have meant the queen of cheesy fries for all any of us know. I don’t think it’s anything to get into a major statement-issuing tizzy over. I’m pretty sure that these king and queen titles we give to musicians aren’t actual designations of royalty or anything. They’re just fun honorifics. Besides, if you keep freaking out like that, you’re going to get a completely different nickname, and it won’t be nearly as flattering.

Here’s Aretha Franklin at the Musicares Person of the Year Benefit on February 8th. Images thanks to PR Photos.