Eminem Admits He Might Have Went ‘Too Far’ by Using Homophobic Slur in Diss Track

Eminem is backtracking after receiving massive blowback for his use of a homophobic slur against another rapper.

On his new album Kamikaze, Eminem, 45, takes jabs at numerous young artists. Many lauded his bombastic lyrics, but his remarks about rapper/producer Tyler, the Creator were seen as out-of-line by most.

Tyler, 27, has alluded to the fact that he may be gay or bisexual in lyrics from his 2017 album, Flower Boy. Eminem leveraged that revelation as an insult, using a homophobic slur in the process.

“Tyler create nothin’, I see why you called yourself a f—, b—,” Eminem rapped on his song “Fallin’.” “It’s not just ’cause you lack attention / It’s because you worship D12’s balls, you’re sack-religious.”

In an interview with Sway Calloway to promote the album, Eminem explained why he dissed Tyler. Apparently it all stemmed from a tweet in which Tyler implied that “Walk on Water,” Eminem’s 2017 song with Beyoncé, was “horrible.”

“I know [with] a lot of this s—, I can come across being very petty, but at a certain point in time, someone has their breaking point,” Eminem said. “So when Tyler tweeted out the thing about ‘Walk on Water’ — ‘This f—ing song is horrible’ — I was like, alright, I need to say something now ’cause this is f—ing stupid.”

After recording his verse, Eminem admitted to himself that the lyric might have been “too far” but kept it out of anger. However, he now realizes that the use of the slur hurt more people than just Tyler.

“I think that the word that I called him on the album 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. And at the time, I was so mad, it was just whatever. But in the midst of everything else that was going on in this album and the things that it took to pull this album together, it was one of the things that I kept going back to going, I don’t feel right with this.”

He continued to backtrack on the use without explicitly apologizing for its use. He seemed to stand his ground that he had to defend himself following Tyler’s “Walk on water” criticism, despite liking Tyler during previous encounters.

“I realize now — and I realized when I said it, but I wasn’t in the mind frame of… I was angry when I said that s— about Tyler,” he said. “The fact of like, every time I saw this kid — always so cool to you. I loved his energy. He was a funny dude. He’s super charismatic and s—, but I’m sitting back like, man, at what point do I have to say something just to defend myself?”

Tyler, the Creator has not responded to Eminem’s insult or the resulting controversy.

Photo Credit: WireImage / Kevin Mazur