Aretha Franklin's family slams eulogy as 'offensive and distasteful'

More controversy broke over the funeral of singer Aretha Franklin after a family spokesman hit out at the 'negative agenda' of the minister who delivered the eulogy.

The minister who hosted the event, Bishop Charles Ellis, apologised after appearing to grope Ariana Grande's breast as he embraced her. Pictures shared on social media drove a storm of criticism with the hashtag #RespectAriana.

Now Vaughn Franklin, Aretha Franklin's nephew, speaking for her family, said of Rev Jasper Williams' address: 'He spoke for 50 minutes and at no time did he properly eulogise her.'

The body of the late singer Aretha Franklin lies in state at the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History for two days of public viewing in Detroit, Michigan.

Williams used his slot to address social issues. He appeared to be critical of the Black Lives Matter campaign against police targeting black people, saying: 'Black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.' He also referred to family breakdown, saying: 'there are not fathers in the home no more', adding that a black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man. Aretha Franklin was herself a single parent of four boys.

During his address, whispers from the congregation of 'Talk about Aretha' could be heard.

In a statement released to media, Vaughn Franklin said the family 'found the comments to be offensive and distasteful'.

Williams was not Aretha's choice, he said, as she had never discussed dying.

'We feel that Rev Jasper Williams, Jr, used this platform to push his negative agenda, which as a family, we do not agree with,' he said.

Williams held a press conference at his church on Sunday in which he defended his words and said they had been taken out of context.

'If you were there or heard about it, I sat there for seven hours almost before I got a chance to do what I was asked to do. So I couldn't get all of the intricacies I wanted in the message because it was too much time. People had grown weary of the hour,' he said.

"I'm sure much of the negativity is due to the fact that they don't understand what I'm talking about.'

He also said: 'Anybody who thinks black America is all right as we are now is crazy. We're not all right. It's a lot of change that needs to occur. This change must come from within us.

'It is ludicrous for the church not to be involved. The church is the only viable institution we have in the African-American community. We must step up and turn our race around.'

Franklin died at her Detroit home on August 16 from pancreatic cancer. Having sung at the inaugurations of three presidents, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, she was an American institution, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then President George W Bush in 2005.

Detroit treated Franklin's death like that of royalty, with people filing past her body in the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History for two days to pay their respects.