Whitney’s funeral really pissed off Aretha Franklin.  Aretha was asked to sing at the ceremony, but she skipped it because she was “suffering from swollen feet” and had to rest up for a concert at Radio City Music Hall that night.  What we don’t know is if anyone told Dionne Warwick?  Maybe Aretha thought one of Warwick’s Psychic Friends would mention it.  But at the funeral, Warwick announced, “One that loves her dearly, that we happen to also love dearly.  She is as much family to us as anyone could ever be.  Please, Miss Aretha Franklin.”  People started applauding, and Warwick sat down.  Then she bounced back up.  “Ree’s not here.  But she IS here.  Always.  She loved Whitney as if she were born to her.  She is her godmother and….”  She was then interrupted – probably by someone who knew that Darlene Love was actually Whitney’s godmother.

Why am I rehashing a story that was pretty well hashed when it happened in 2012?  Because Aretha believes that Dionne knew she wasn’t at the funeral and purposely tried to make her look bad.  How do we know this?  Because Aretha sent a three-page fax to the Associated Press.  Yes, a FAX.  Just picture Auntie Ree sitting there, feeding paper into a fax machine with one hand, and hot wings into her mouth with the other!  The first thing she wanted to clear up with the AP was this godmother crap.  “Franklin said she first met Houston when Houston was a child – and she was far too busy to be anyone’s godmother.”  Look, she was BUSY!  As to Dionne, Franklin says, “She blatantly lied on me…fully well knowing what she was doing.”  What stirred this up was when the ladies both found themselves on the red carpet at a screening of Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives, also at the Tribeca Film Festival.  According to Franklin, Dionne said, “Give me a hug”.  Franklin replied, “Oh hell no.  You couldn’t be serious.”  When the AP asked if she wanted an apology, Aretha said, “I don’t care about her apology, at this point it isn’t about an apology, it’s about libel.  We’ve never been friends and I don’t think that Dionne has ever liked me.”  In other words, walk on by, bitch.