Flaming Lips Say Erykah Badu Is Stirring Up 'Controversy'

Last week, an irate Erykah Badu instructed the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne to kiss her "glittery ass," after the frizzy-haired frontman released a shocking (and nudity-filled) video for their Heady Fwends collaboration "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" without her approval.

"As a human, I am disgusted with your what appears to be desperation and poor execution," she wrote in an epically long tweet. "As a director, I am unimpressed. As a sociologist I understand your type. As your fellow artist I am uninspired. As a woman I feel violated and underestimated."

Of course, at the time, Coyne's only response was a rather cheeky (get it?!?) image of his glitter-covered lips, along with the message "I kissed it! Thanks!" But now, in an interview with BBC Radio's 6Music, he's finally addressed the issue — and, to him, it's nothing more than Badu creating controversy for the sake of her career.

"She is a controversial entity in the world," Coyne said. "So everything that she does has an element of her doing art."

Coyne went on to say that, in his opinion, there's nothing controversial about the "Face" video and added that Badu's claims that she was kept in the dark about its concept were false. In fact, he accused her of playing up the perceived controversy to make headlines.

"This video to me is not controversial, it's wonderful, and I think Erykah knew she could play into it if we made a video that could be perceived as derogatory," he said. "Otherwise I don't think she'd be interested in it. I think [her reaction] is still in the realm of a creation of controversy."

So far, Badu hasn't responded to those claims, and Coyne has returned to tweeting photos of sunrises. Which means, for the moment at least, it appears both have put the beef on the back burner; though we're willing to be this won't be the last we've heard of Glitter-gate 2012.

What do you think of Coyne and Badu's back-and-forth? Let us know in the comments!