Diane Warren apologizes after questioning the amount of writers on on a Beyoncé song

If there is one rule on the internet, it’s Don’t poke the Beyhive (followed closely by Don’t incite the Barbz). Unfortunately, Diane Warren wasn’t aware of this golden rule–or perhaps, in her hubris, simply chose to disregard it–and she certainly felt the full force of Beyoncé stans’ displeasure after commenting on the amount of writers credited on Renaissance.

Warren, a prolific songwriter with 32 top-ten Billboard hits to her name, didn’t call out Beyoncé by name. However, fans justifiably assumed she was referencing the singer (and specifically, her new track “Alien Superstar”) when Warren tweeted on Monday, “How can there be 24 writers on a song?” Warren added a pointed eye roll to the end of her tweet, though she was quick to add, “This isn’t meant as shade, I’m just curious.”

After sorting through the immediate deluge of angry fans, Warren was able to sate her professional curiosity — “Ok, it’s prob samples that add up the ammount [sic] of writerrs [sic],” she tweeted, begging the question: how does an industry veteran like Warren not understand sampling? — but not before she was taken to task by frequent Beyoncé collaborator and Renaissance contributor The Dream.

“You mean how’s does our (Black) culture have so many writers, well it started because we couldn’t afford certain things starting out,so we started sampling and it became an Artform, a major part of the Black Culture (hip hop) in America.Had that era not happen who knows. U good?” He responded in a tweet, adding in a second, “Btw I know it’s not a one on one writing contest you looking for from no one over here…… you don’t want that smoke And you know I love you, but come on. Stop acting like your records haven’t been sampled.”

While The Dream’s response certainly received some backlash of its own — not everyone was sure about the accuracy of his history lesson — his spiel certainly humbled Warren. She replied, “I didn’t mean that as an attack or as disrespect. I didn’t know this, thank U for making me aware of it. No need to be mean about it.”

She further posted, “Ok, I meant no disrespect to @Beyonce, who I’ve worked with and admire. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.” Truthfully, it doesn’t seem like there was much of a misunderstanding at all–Warren never denied that her comments were about Beyoncé (her collaboration with whom she recently deemed a “favorite” of her career). And that damning eye roll emoji suggests there was at least some degree of shade being thrown. In any case, Warren has probably learned her lesson about angering Beyoncé stans.