Aretha Franklin is said to be threatening her former ghostwriter David Ritz with legal action after he allegedly published a book about the singer without her permission.Ritz, who was the author behind Aretha’s 1999 memoir “From These Roots”, has claimed that portions of the content in “Respect” is material that was cut from the original autobiography by the severely private artist.Franklin, who is currently promoting her latest album “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics”, is said to be “enormously upset about the book” which refers to the sexual promiscuity on the gospel circuit that both her and her father toured with as a “Sex Circus” with “Men-and-men and women-and-women hook-ups”.Speaking to Detroit News this week, Aretha stated “There’s a very trashy, trashy book on the street . . . It’s lies, lies, lies and then more lies.” Franklin adds, “I’m talking to a criminal attorney. If this isn’t defamation, I don’t know what would be.”Fellow soul singer Etta James, who passed away in 2012, is quoted as saying, “I can understand Aretha not wanting to talk about that . . . Who wants to admit that you’re praising the Lord at the 8 p.m. service and servicing some drop-dead gorgeous hunk of a singer an hour later? Aretha and I started out before we were teenagers . . . we wanted to experience it all. I wouldn’t use the expression sexually active, I’d say sexually overactive.”Ritz has recently defended his actions  “I spent 25 years researching ‘Respect.’ I see my book as an homage to Aretha’s artistic genius and an empathetic portrait of a woman who has survived and thrived in the complex culture of show business.”