Chris Brown Starts Beef With Oprah. Guess Who Finishes It?

Winfrey responds to R&B star's comments that he didn't appreciate her vilifying him during her Rihanna-inspired episode last spring

If there's one person you don't want on your bad side, it's Oprah Winfrey.

David Letterman knows that. James Frey knows that. Even the beef industry knows that.

Chris Brown apparently doesn't know that.

The apologetic and memory-fritzing R&B star had not so much incendiary as ill-advised words for the one-woman empire during the first leg of his I'm Sorry media tour this week. He told People he didn't exactly care for Oprah's Rihanna-inspired episode on domestic abuse last spring.

"I commend Oprah on being like, 'This is a problem,' but it was a slap in my face," he said.

Well, he's the expert.

"I did a lot of stuff for her, like going to Africa and performing for her school. She could have been more helpful, like, 'OK, I'm going to help both of these people out.' "

What Oprah did was dedicate the show "to all the Rihannas of the world" and inform her audience that "love doesn't hurt. And if a man hits you once, he will hit you again. He will hit you again. I don't care what his plea is."

Or, apparently, how many cable news shows he tells his tale on.

Never one to shy away from speaking her mind, Winfrey wasn't going to let Brown's backhanded commendation go without comment of her own.

"Oprah is very appreciative that Chris Brown performed at her school, but she takes domestic abuse very seriously," a spokeswoman for the daytime diva and all around world-runner told E! News.

"She hopes he gets the counseling he needs."

Sounds like someone won't be getting an invitation to appear during sweeps.