Aretha Franklin's family said the controversial eulogy delivered by an Atlanta pastor at the late singer's funeral, criticizing Black Lives Matter and single mothers, was "offensive and distasteful."

Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., who leads the Salem Bible Church in Atlanta, gave a fiery sermon at the Queen of Soul's Detroit funeral Friday, lamenting how black America is losing its "soul" and is hindered by a large percentage of single black women leading households and raising children alone.



"Rev. Jasper Williams spent more than 50 minutes speaking and at no time did he properly eulogize her," Vaughn Franklin, the singer's nephew, said Monday in a statement to BuzzFeed News on behalf of his family. "We found the comments to be offensive and distasteful."

Franklin said that his aunt had never asked for Williams to deliver her funeral address, "because dying is a topic that she never discussed with anyone." The family asked the pastor to perform the eulogy because he had memorialized other family members, including Aretha Franklin's father, minister and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin.



"However, there were several people that my aunt admired that would have been outstanding individuals to deliver her eulogy," Vaughn Franklin noted, listing names such as Rev. Al Sharpton.



During the elaborate ceremony honoring the 76-year-old's life, Williams described children being raised without a father as "abortion after birth."

"Seventy percent of our households are led by our precious, proud, fine black women," he bellowed. "But as proud, beautiful, and fine as our black women are, one thing a black woman cannot do — a black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man."

Franklin, who died last month from pancreatic cancer, raised four boys on her own, and many criticized the pastor for degrading her hard work as a single mother.

In another controversial moment, Williams told mourners, "black lives do not matter...must not matter" until black people start respecting "black lives and stop killing ourselves."

"Black lives can never matter," he shouted, sparking a rebuke from Stevie Wonder, who yelled back, "Black lives matter."

The contentious eulogy "caught the entire family off guard," Vaughn Franklin said.