Such was Joan Crawford's answer yesterday to widely circulated rumors about a rift between her and Alfred N. Steele, newly made chairman of the board for Pepsi-Cola.

"Some busybody has been doing a lot of talking—a very big busybody, I might add," declared the motion picture actress, who had just finished a day's work on the test stages for a new picture at Columbia.

"It is a fact that my husband has to go East because the wife of one of his executives has suffered a stroke," she continued, "and he is needed especially now to conduct the affairs of the company. But that is simply an emergency that has arisen in business and has nothing to do with our marriage.

Recent Honeymoon

"He had not expected to go East for a while, but as it looks now he will leave tomorrow. At first it seemed as if he might have to leave today."

Miss Crawford and Steele returned within the past two weeks from a honeymoon trip to Europe, and almost immediately the star plunged into preparations for her new picture.

The fact that the couple had indicated they could not accept certain social appointments which they had made was cited by their associates as the probable cause of the rift rumors. They have had to forego everything, these associates said, because Steele is now on the eve of leaving for the East.