Keyshia Cole is willing to protect her friends at all costs.

During an interview for TV One’s “Uncensored,” the R&B songstress admitted that her hands-on approach to dealing with strangers cost her a friendship with Eve.

“It took a long time to learn to not put my hands on people,” Keyshia said in a clip, obtained by The Shade Room.

She recalled an incident when someone grabbed Eve’s bag and Keyshia reacted in a violent manner. “I just kinda turned around and slapped the girl,” she said matter of factly.

Eve was not happy with how Keyshia handled the situation and they stopped being friends. “Eve is really pissed off about that. We stopped hanging out. She was like, ‘I can’t hang with Keyshia. She can’t be slapping people.'”

While she learned a lesson, Keyshia insists that her intentions were good. “I was like, ‘I’d slap somebody for you.'”

The two became friends after collaborating on “Never” off Keyshia’s 2005 debut album The Way It Is.

Keyshia has been quiet on the music front after announcing retirement plans last year. In February 2021, she released her single “I Don’t Wanna Be in Love” following her Verzuz battle with Ashanti.

As for Eve, she recently welcomed her first child, a boy named Wilde Wolf Fife Alexander Somers Cooper, with husband Maximillion Cooper.