Chaka Khan held her 60th birthday at EVR Tuesday, but one missing guest was fellow diva Aretha Franklin, who was presiding over her own divalicious 71st birthday at the Ritz-Carlton. But we hear the singers dined together earlier in the week. “Aretha and Chaka spent birthday time together at Aretha’s birthday dinner on Monday . . . at Le Bernardin,” said a Khan rep. Khan even gave Franklin, who played the Westchester County Center last night, a regal diva pass: “Chaka pardoned Aretha from her dinner party,” the rep added. At Khan’s fun-filled birthday were Gayle King, Al Sharpton and Star Jones, who told us she met Khan “years ago” at a “chocolate festival in Düsseldorf.” King told us, “Chaka is every woman.” When we asked Sharpton whom he will endorse for mayor, he replied, “Is Chaka running?” Khan gave a speech paying tribute to her family and thanking “my sister Tammy, I sent her to college so she could take a business course so we could keep this in the family . . . I don’t think I made a wiser decision in my life . . . Sometimes nepotism can work as long as everybody wears their specific hat.” A dance party broke out as soon as Khan’s classic “Ain’t Nobody” came on. Meanwhile, at the Ritz-Carlton, “Queen of Soul” Aretha was being feted by Tony Bennett and pianist and singer Jo Thompson, who is appearing at the Cafe Carlyle tonight and Saturday.
Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin’s separate b-days
By
PageSix.com Staff
Published
March 28, 2013, 4:00 a.m. ET