Upon the release of his new album Kamikaze, Eminem was met with criticism for using a homophobic slur in his track “Fall.” Among the rapper’s loudest critics were Imagine Dragons’ frontman Dan Reynolds and Eminem’s own collaborator on the track, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
The line in question is a diss directed at Tyler, The Creator: “Tyler create nothin’ / I see why you called yourself a faggot, bitch.” The line was his response to tweets from Tyler about Eminem’s 2017 single “Walk on Water.” When that track came out, the Odd Future rapper posted, “dear god this song is horrible, sheesh how the fuck.”
Now, in a multipart interview with Sway, Eminem admits that while he doesn’t regret standing up for himself, he regrets using the word. “I think the word that I called him on that song was one of the things where I felt like this might be too far,” he said. “Because in my quest to hurt him, I realize that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it.”
Eminem, who has used homophobic slurs in his previous work, added that as he finalized his album, his use of the slur did bother him so he decided to slightly obscure the word. But he now realizes that people can still understand what he’s saying.
