I created this account to act as a throwaway, but I guess only time will tell if that holds up.

I need help and I don’t know where else to ask. I’m hoping this falls under counting as a small business question.

I own a character rental/party princess business. I started it myself a little over 4 years ago, I’ve known my best friend for 5. I understand that people say that you shouldn’t hire friends and family, but for reasons I’d rather not give too much detail about I didn’t have much of a choice. There literally wasn’t anyone else I could ask.

I style the wigs for the company myself and yesterday I was working on the wig for one of the princesses my best friend hates (something about how her voice sounds???). I wanted someone to give an opinion, so I asked their sister. My best friend made a joke about how the wig looked like trash. I know a lot of people on Reddit like to overanalyze things, but I swear they really had said it as nothing more than a joke. They say stuff like that about anything having to do with this specific character all the time. There’s a small detail that I like to create for each of the costumes myself, which is relevant because I joked back by saying their opinion didn’t count because when I asked them for a design idea I could use for that detail with this character they had suggested a trash can on fire.

That’s when they said their opinion should count, because they’re co-owner and believe I shouldn’t even be adding that detail to the costumes to begin with.

I never brought them into the company as a co-owner. Every time I’ve talked to others about how they’re associated with the company, I’ve always referred to them as the roles I brought them on for. Character assistant and photographer. I don’t know how they could have gotten the idea about being the co-owner, unless it’s something they assumed thanks to being with the company since the beginning. But by that logic, my dad would own a part of my company too with how much he’s given me financial help without asking, yet he’s never claimed to have any connection to the company at all.

I feel like there might be some people trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be trying to run a company of any size if I don’t know how to handle something like this on my own, but I’ve never dealt with a situation like this before. I want to just say “You called yourself the co-owner last night, but that’s not what I made you a part of this for. I want you as part of this to be one of the assistants, photographer, and one of the performers (we’ve talked about starting them as a performer, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet), but that’s it.” but I’m worried I will just come off as rude and turn into an argument.

Can someone help me figure out how to talk to them about this, in a way that doesn’t come off like I’m trying to start an argument?

Edit: For people asking about how I pay them, it’s cash. They’ve been struggling to open a bank account. Whenever they’re able to get ahold of their birth certificate/ssn something happens that causes it to get destroyed. I know this isn’t a lie because I was there for the most recent incident last year, and the state has been fighting them on giving them new copies ever since.