Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Lopez & LeAnn Rimes Weigh In On Beyonce’s Alleged Lip Syncing

Beyonce’s music peers are chiming following reports that the singer gave a lip synced performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the presidential inauguration on Monday.

Aretha Franklin, who sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” four years ago at Obama’s first inauguration, found the reports of a taped performance funny.

“When I heard the news this evening that she was pre-recorded I really laughed. I thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather,” the Queen of Soul told ABC News. “When I heard that I just really cracked up. I thought it was really funny, but she did a beautiful job with the pre-record … next time I’ll probably do the same.”

As for Aretha, she never thought about using a pre-recorded track.

“I wanted to give people the real thing and pre-recording never crossed my mind,” she explained.

So does Aretha think lip syncing is wrong?

“I think it’s optional really, it’s up to the artist,” the singer explained. “In 2009, I wanted everything to be live and on the real side for the moment as it actually happened. Those were my feelings for my performance, but having come face to face with 28, 22 degrees I am not surprised she pre-recorded. She wanted her performance to be what she wanted to be and she realized it wasn’t going to be the way she wanted it to be or she was going to be running a risk. That’s probably why she pre-recorded exactly how she wanted it to be heard.”

LeAnn Rimes was also asked about the alleged lip sync on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

“There are times when people will ask you to do it and they will not let you do it unless you do it because they want control of what happens,” the country singer told Jimmy.

Jennifer Lopez also weighed in on the reports, telling Jon Stewart, “In certain venues they do pre-record things because you’re gonna have that terrible slapback.”

— Jesse Spero