Jennifer Lawrence wasn't trying to be mean by declaring "I beat Meryl" during her 2013 Golden Globes speech -- she was just quoting a movie! The Silver Linings Playbook actress, 22, visited The Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday, Jan. 15 to clear up the controversy surrounding her acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical on Jan. 13.

"It's never a good idea for me to wing it, but it was a quote from First Wives Club!" Lawrence said. "Bette Midler was talking about a Globe -- I can't believe nobody has ever done it before -- where she says, 'Look what it says, it says I beat Meryl.'"

"It was so perfect, and I said it," she explained of the 1996 film starring Midler, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn. (In The First Wives Club movie scene that Lawrence was quoting, Midler goes into Hawn's apartment, picks up the award and says, 'Look what it says! It says, I beat Meryl.'") "I had no idea that Lindsay Lohan would take it to the Twitterverse, is that what they call it? I'm not on Twitter, but Twitter is very upset."

Lohan, 26, did slam Lawrence's speech while watching the Globes. "No one should ever mess with a legend, such as Meryl Streep," the Mean Girls start tweeted.

"First of all, it's Meryl Streep. You can't offend Meryl Streep," Lawrence argued to David Letterman. "And then all of the sudden I hate Meryl Streep. Is that what this turned into? I don't like Meryl Streep? As if I had my eyes on getting that girl forever and I was like, 'Finally! I knew it would happen one day!'"

"What about the dopes that don't get the joke?" Letterman asked.

"I wanted to make a public statement and say, 'Hey idiots. It's a quote from a movie,'" Lawrence joked. "'And it's Meryl Streep.'"

Lawrence also pulled a movie quote during her 2013 People's Choice Awards acceptance speech on Jan. 9 -- which happened to be a line uttered by Lohan in her trademark film. "I wish this was like Mean Girls," the Hunger Games actress said while accepting the award for Favorite Movie Actress, "and I could just break this up and throw it on all of you." In the 2004 film, Lohan's character receives a crown after winning Spring Fling Queen and breaks it into pieces to share with her classmates who didn't win.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Jennifer Lawrence Defends Meryl Streep Golden Globes Speech Diss: "It Was a Quote From First Wives Club"