Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ Sales Skyrocket After Oscars Performance

Oscars viewers were in for a very surprising treat during the ceremony as Eminem performed his Academy Award-winning track “Lose Yourself” years after the song won the award for Best Original Song. And in the days following his performance, sales of “Lose Yourself” have skyrocketed, according to a new report from Forbes.

“Lose Yourself” reportedly sold 4,000 downloads on Sunday, when the Oscars aired, which was a 1,894 percent jump over the previous day, per Chart Data. Additionally, the song rose to the number one spot on the iTunes’ Top Songs chart. Eminem’s recently released album, Music to Be Murdered By, also enjoyed a bump as a result of his Oscars appearance, topping iTunes’ albums chart. His album, which was released on Jan. 17, originally debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January.

Eminem’s hit track, which was featured in the film 8 Mile, a film that also starred the rapper, originally nabbed the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003. Although, he wasn’t on hand to actually accept the award, with the co-writer of the song, Luis Resto accepting the award from presenter Barbara Streisand instead. Since he did not attend the 2003 ceremony, Eminem was finally able to perform his hit song at the Academy Awards 17 years later.

Following the 2020 ceremony, Eminem spoke to Variety where he revealed exactly why he skipped the Academy Awards in 2003 and how his recent performance came together.

“I kinda figured maybe since I didn’t get a chance to do it at the time, maybe it would be cool. Back then, I never even thought that I had a chance to win, and we had just performed ‘Lose Yourself’ on the Grammys with the Roots a couple of weeks before the Oscars, so we didn’t think it was a good idea,” Eminem said, detailing why he skipped the ceremony years ago. “And also, back at that time, the younger me didn’t really feel like a show like that would understand me.”

“But then when I found out I won, ‘That’s crazy!’ That to me shows how authentic and real that award is — when you don’t show up and you still win. That makes it very real to me,” he continued.

When the interviewer noted that he would have received an award from Streisand had he shown up, the rapper concurred that it would have indeed provided an amazing Oscars moment, as he said, “Yeah, that would have been crazy.”