History Characters / EminemBeefs

Benzino makes an extraordinary number of appearances compared to Eminem's other beefs, appearing in "Say What You Say", "The Invasion (The Realest)", "The Sauce", "Nail In The Coffin", "Welcome to Detroit City", "Go To Sleep", "We All Die One Day", "The Invasion (The Conspiracy)", "The Invasion (Armageddon)", "Doe Rae Me (Hailie's Revenge)", "Keep Talkin'", "Wrong", "Bully", "Fubba U Cubba Cubba", "Like Toy Soldiers", "My 1st Single", "Bump Heads", "Hail Mary", "I'm Gone", "Never Enough", "Big Weenie", "Gatman and Robbin" and "Killshot". "Yellow Brick Road" does not mention Benzino, but was inspired by his actions in their beef. "As The World Turns", "Get You Mad" and "Bad Influence" make insulting references to Benzino's magazine, ''The Source'', but at that point the beef hadn't turned personal. Despite the beef fading in the mid-00s, Eminem inexplicably released a diss track about him in 2024, "Doomsday Pt. 2".

* CanadaEh: Eminem claims in both "Can-I-Bitch" and "Square Dance" that Canibus is Canadian. There is no evidence for this; it's likely that Eminem was banking on the stereotype of Canadians as overly polite and non-confrontational, which would be a grievous insult to someone like Bus who prided himself on his BattleRapping skills.

The plant-based, bald-headed electronic musician Music/{{Moby}} ended up becoming an enemy of Eminem starting from the 2001 UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s, in which, while defending Eminem's right to free speech, he called him "a misogynist, homophobic, racist and [an] antisemite", and then accused Eminem of being secretly gay and in love with him. Eminem responded by dissing Moby and threatening to assault him at the 2002 [=VMAs=]. While Eminem insisted in interviews that the beef was a joke (and Moby assumed at first that it was), Eminem's hatred of the man was sincere enough to genuinely frighten Moby, make ''him'' genuinely frightened ''of'' Moby[[note]]see the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog section below for more of how ''that'' one turned out[[/note]], and result in Moby getting assaulted in real life by a gang of imitation Slim Shadies.

* ArcFatigue:[[invoked]] Eminem eventually became really, ''really'' sick of Benzino due to viewing him as an unworthy opponent and use of his time, while his own pettiness prevented him from being able to leave him alone. His last few songs and verses released as part of the beef are increasingly bored pleas for Benzino to accept the beef is over and leave him alone. This contributed to ''Music/{{Encore}}'''s AlbumFiller issues, since tracks addressing the beef were removed in order to replace them with "Like Toy Soldiers", which lyrically (and visually, in the video) shows him laying down his mic and walking away from the beef. Benzino self-declared himself to be Eminem's ArchNemesis and continued slinging insults at him on-and-off for several decades. He was still insulting Eminem on Twitter as late as 2022, dragging in his [[WackyParentSeriousChild unfortunate]] daughter Music/CoiLeray when it turned out that even ''she'' took Eminem's side in the beef over his.

Benzino makes an extraordinary number of appearances compared to Eminem's other beefs, appearing in "Say What You Say", "The Invasion (The Realest)", "The Sauce", "Nail In The Coffin", "Welcome to Detroit City", "Go To Sleep", "We All Die One Day", "The Invasion (The Conspiracy)", "The Invasion (Armageddon)", "Doe Rae Me (Hailie's Revenge)", "Keep Talkin'", "Wrong", "Bully", "Fubba U Cubba Cubba", "Like Toy Soldiers", "My 1st Single", "Bump Heads", "Hail Mary", "I'm Gone", "Never Enough", "Big Weenie", "Gatman and Robbin" and "Killshot". "Yellow Brick Road" does not mention Benzino, but was inspired by his actions in their beef. "As The World Turns", "Get You Mad" and "Bad Influence" make insulting references to Benzino's magazine, ''The Source'', but at that point the beef hadn't turned personal.

* ArchNemesis: Benzino self-declared himself to be this. While the relationship is somewhat one-sided, he is probably the closest candidate (excluding Eminem's family members and Eminem himself), having inspired a much larger body of work than any other rapper who went up against him and being chiefly remembered ''for'' fighting Eminem for a year and getting pasted.

* BreakupSong: "Bagpipes From Baghdad" was intended by Eminem to be a warning to Nick that Mariah was a total psycho. In "Lord Above", he chides the now divorced Nick for not listening to him.
%%* CelebrityBreakupSong: Several rather degrading ones.

* FutureLoser: ''Rolling Stone'' tracked down the real [=DeAngelo=] Bailey and found he was working as a janitor, and bragging to his friends and family about being the person who once beat the shit out of the great Eminem. His obvious pride in bullying ended up being very expensive to Bailey when he tried suing Eminem for defamation in the mid-2000s.
* GlassCannon: Sure, Bailey's big, mean, and shows no mercy to his victims, but he ''cannot'' take what he dishes out. After barely surviving a brutal beating at the bully's hands, Slim Shady raids a nearby janitor's closet for tools to use as improvised weapons… except he ends up not even needing most of them since Bailey goes down after Slim hits him in the head with a broom a few times.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: One of the reasons the judge dismissed Bailey's attempt to sue Eminem for defamation of character was because Bailey went on public record boasting in ''Rolling Stone'' about how he used to beat up Eminem, that his kids cheered every time they heard his name on the album, and that he would sign copies of ''The Slim Shady LP'' for people. The judge pointed out that if he was boasting about bullying him, it couldn't be that defamatory to call him a bully.

* GameBreakingInjury: While Eminem signed the death certificate of Benzino's career, Benzino inflicted a serious wound on Eminem by leaking [[OldShame some racist freestyles he did as a teenager]]. While Eminem did not face the same level of scrutiny for these freestyles as he likely would have today, they were instrumental in the accusations of racism Eminem faced for mocking Music/MichaelJackson on his ''Music/{{Encore}}'' lead single "Just Lose It", contributing to the mixed reception to ''Encore'' and ending Eminem's imperial phase.

* RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun: Destroying Benzino's career is one of Eminem's proudest moments as a battle rapper. In "Killshot", there's a brief ContinuityCavalcade of Benzino references as Eminem emphasises to Music/MachineGunKelly the careers he has destroyed - "''next to Benzino, die! motherfucker[[note]]a quote from the hook of his Benzino diss "Go To Sleep", quoted with the exact same cadence[[/note]], like the ''last'' motherfucker saying 'Hailie' in vain!... nails, in these, coffins[[note]]a reference to his Benzino diss "Nail In The Coffin"[[/note]] as soft as Cottonelle...''"

* AntagonistInMourning: In "Bang", Eminem claims it sucked to beef with Canibus because he was a huge fan of his.

* BrokenPedestal: Eminem's initial fandom for Canibus was scuppered by his weird, obsessive behaviour and reactionary politics. His respect for his rapping ability never goes away, although Canibus's period of copying Eminem's style tested it.

* ConspiracyTheorist: In 2009, Canibus began to make bizarre allegations that Eminem was descended from Order of the Golden Dawn member Samuel Liddel [=McGregor=] Mathers and using HermeticMagic to control the rap industry.
* CopycatMockery: Eminem could do a pretty funny impression of Canibus's gravelly voice and aggressive, dancehall-infused cadence, and used this often to mock him. Canibus could also do a pretty solid impression of Eminem's voice, using it to play Stan throughout ''C! True Hollywood Stories''.
* EvilVirtues: Em respects Bus as an emcee and his style was a strong influence on his own early style, and his genuine fandom of him comes through even in his insults. Even when Bus was a punchbag after his ''Can-I-Bitch'' album was panned, Eminem – while acknowledging he didn't like Bus as a person – insisted that the rapping on it was excellent, and the comparative failure of the album was due to Wyclef's AlternativeHipHop production not suiting Bus's rapping style.

-->…before metaphors were ''Reservoir Dogs'', before Christ was hung on the cross, before – ''(gets gunned down by Slim)''

* KarmicOverkill[[invoked]]: Canibus's "Air Strike" used ManipulativeEditing to make it look like D12 had turned on Eminem; made fun of the death of Detroit rap scene icon and best friend of Eminem, Proof; and claimed Eminem enjoyed being molested as a child. Considering it was launched unprovoked at Eminem after he'd been a recluse for four years and only just managed to get over a drug addiction that nearly killed him, it was written off by the hip-hop community as a disgraceful low blow, done for attention. Eminem and D12 felt themselves above responding on wax, only responding with public statements in which they expressed that the best way to handle the track was not to engage with it.

* WorthyOpponent: Canibus's skill led to him being the only one of Eminem's beef opponents with whom he was interested in an actual in-person battle. While it never happened, Proof used the pretext of a battle with Canibus to trick Eminem into attending what was actually a surprise party for his 30th birthday.

* BeneathNotice: Virtually nothing Nick Cannon has done in order to get Eminem's attention has attracted any formal response, including trying to ''mend'' the beef (which is generally considered an insincere attempt to get Eminem to come on ''Wild 'N' Out'' or ''Series/TheMaskedSinger'').

* CelebrityBreakupSong: Several rather degrading ones.

* {{Foil}} / MirrorCharacter: Much like many of Eminem's other anti-muses, Mariah and Eminem have a lot in common. Both are massive pop superstars who mainstreamed Black genres for white audiences, using a style that emphasises the technical, often-gimmicky tricks they can do with their own voices -- and both faced discrimatory treatment for straddling racial boundaries. Both came from horrible broken homes and abusive relationships, both have had mental health problems as a result of being in the public eye, and both developed a robus sense of humour as a coping mechanism. The big difference is that Mariah absolutely ''loves'' all of the [[TheBeautifulElite extravagance and materialism]] that comes with fame, which Eminem finds dull. "Bagpipes From Baghdad" references this with an odd stream-of-consciousness passage mingling a description of Mariah's luxurious house and ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' satin bedspread with a description of Eminem's GenreBusting musical inspirations.
* {{Gaslighting}}: Mariah's second DissTrack aimed at Eminem, "Obsessed", accuses him of this. Eminem responds by accusing ''her'' of this. The best available evidence is that both of them were lying about the other.

* ThePrimaDonna: Eminem claimed in interviews around the time of their 'breakup' (?) that, although he respected Mariah as an artist, he didn't like her as a person because of her self-obsessed and materialistic personality. During live performances of "Ass Like That" and "Puke" he would call her "annoying", and in "The Warning" he'd describe her as "psycho". On "The Warning" he would call her a "slut-bitch-cunt".

* AccidentalPervert: While Eminem merely hates him as a whole, Kelly didn't exactly do himself any favors when he tried to drift on Hailie [[PaedoHunt without realizing that she was still underaged]].

* EmasculatedCuckold: Apparently, Kells's attitude is because Music/{{Halsey}} is sleeping with Music/GEazy. (Kells had claimed he was fucking her behind G-Eazy's back in a freestyle; Eminem flips this around to make Kells the cuckold.)

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Moby admitted the insulting cartoons Eminem drew of Slim Shady killing him were pretty good, and still has them framed on his wall.

* MemeticMutation: "Nobody listens to techno" is a memorable catchphrase even outside of Eminem's fandom -- Moby has occasionally performed in a t-shirt printed with the phrase, and there's multiple techno songs that sample it.
* PassingNotesInClass: One of Eminem's main ways of harassing Moby was to pass him [[https://www.jordanharbinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/moby-eminem-drawing-credit-ryan-hartford.jpg cartoons he drew]] of Slim Shady assaulting Moby -- once in person, once getting D12 to give a drawing to him.
* PoliticalCorrectnessIsEvil: Why Moby wound Eminem up as much as he did.

* ShamedByAMob: Eminem's consequence for his beef with Moby was to get booed by an entire audience of pop stars and music industry professionals, as he crowed, "keep booing!"

* VaderBreath: Has this in "Medicine Ball".

* BerserkButton: Eminem's strange behaviour at the 2002 [=VMAs=] was the result of being drunk and ImproperlyParanoid about his beef with Music/{{Moby}}. MTV had [[WaxingLyrical switched the chairs so he could sit next to]] Moby to create some tension between them, making Eminem suspect Moby was setting something up to make him look stupid. Once the puppet dog showed up, Eminem viewed it as being an associate of Moby putting his hand in his face, and attempted to forcefully but peacefully shut the situation down. Much of this was because Eminem was still viewing his new mainstream-celebrity environment through a rap beef lens and assuming the well-paid entertainers around him would be as hostile as gang-affiliated Detroit battle-rap crews; upon realising how ridiculous he'd come across and how everyone now was too scared of him to have normal conversations, he [[MessOfWoe trashed the Green Room in a tantrum]].
* {{Catchphrase}}: "I keed, I keed!". Eminem uses this in "Ass Like That".

* MadeOutToBeAJerkass: For his part, Smigel was [[http://youtu.be/Y7K7c2KN4hk?t=1m40s not threatened]] by Eminem's behaviour at the [=VMAs=] -- he'd intuited that Eminem had misinterpreted the situation, but also noticed Proof smiling at him as he knocked the papers out of his hands, viewing it as "a wrestling sketch". [[ManipulativeEditing MTV panicked and cut away from Proof's attempt to play peacemaker, making the incident look worse than it was]].
* MainstreamObscurity[[invoked]]: Despite being a beloved character on a major late-night TV show, Eminem's overreaction was because he had never seen the show and had no idea what the puppet was.

[[caption-width-right:316:It's your moment, this is it. As big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it. Had to ''give you a career to destroy it!!'']]

Music/MachineGunKelly is a rapper, actor and, later, pop-punk singer, known for his rockstar fashion, extensive tattoos and beef with Eminem in 2018. He accused Eminem of banning his music from his radio station [=Shade45=] due to a Tweet in which he called Hailie (underage at the time) hot. In response, Eminem jabbed at him in "The Ringer" and "Not Alike", resulting in MGK retorting with "Rap Devil".

Eminem's AnswerSong, "Killshot", is not only the highest charting DissTrack of all time (as of 2022), but was Eminem's most critically-acclaimed project since ''Music/TheEminemShow'', serving as a CareerResurrection for him. Eminem has claimed he's moved on from the beef, but apparently not enough for him to resist gloating about it in "Yah Yah", "Unaccommodating", "No Regrets" and "Gospel". "Marsh" also contains multiple subliminals aimed at Kells.

* DamnedByAFoolsPraise: Downplayed. Kells's inability to count how many albums Eminem had made after ''Recovery'' is worthy of a verbal slap on its own, but Kells thinking ''Recovery'' was his last good album also displays his lack of understanding of what makes good rap. Especially after multiple lines on ''Kamikaze'' showed Eminem expressing CreatorBacklash[[invoked]] to his ''Recovery'' musical style and persona.

* EmasculatedCuckold: Apparently Kells's attitude is because Music/{{Halsey}} is sleeping with Music/GEazy. (Kells had claimed he was fucking her behind G-Eazy's back in a freestyle; Eminem flips this around to make Kells the cuckold.)

* KnockingTheKnockoff: In "Killshot", Eminem makes it clear he views Kells as a poor-quality knockoff of his own young self, an imitation Slim Shady in the same blond hair and earrings as the kid from the beginning of "Sing For The Moment"... or Stan.
* LegacyCharacter: Eminem accuses Kells of thinking he's one of these for him, and denies it. "''Young me? You the wack me.''" Instead, he places him as a legacy character of both his old foe Benzino (referencing his Benzino disses "Go To Sleep" and "Nail In The Coffin") and [[StrawFan Stan]] (directly quoting that song as well.)
* LibationForTheDead: Halfway through "Killshot", Eminem pops a bottle of champagne and pours it out on the floor in mourning of Kells, while ironically praising him - "''it's your moment, as big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it''".

Creator/ChristopherReeve was an actor and disability rights campaigner best known for playing Film/{{Superman|FilmSeries}} -- in a film that had a formative effect on the young Eminem -- and being rendered quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident in 1995. This made him the Unacceptable Target Of All Unacceptable Targets, making him an irresistible victim for Shady's pointless spite.

The RunningGag of Slim's beef with Christopher started in 2000 and continued for the entire decade, including after Reeve's death in 2004. Slim Shady does not appear to be certain what Christopher Reeve's name is, the precise nature of his disability, or even if he's dead or not, but under no circumstances will that hold him back from saying whatever he wants about him to make you mad. Reeve, for his part, is not amused and occasionally responds with furious death and assault threats.

Triumph the InsultComic Dog is a [[CigarChomper cigar-chomping]] canine {{candid camera prank}}ster, originating as a skit on Creator/ConanOBrien's ''[[Series/LateNightWithConanOBrien Late Night]]'' show. A [[StylisticSuck deliberately crappy]] hand-puppet operated by comedian and writer Robert Smigel, Triumph would appear at award shows to roast celebrities, which brought him into conflict with Eminem at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. Showing up to mock Eminem, the rapper instead pinched the puppet's jaw shut and pushed him out of his face, followed by his hypeman Proof taking his operator's script and throwing it at him. This made Eminem appear to be a fragile bully unable to even take criticism from a silly puppet -- which, along with his unwarranted hostility to Music/{{Moby}} at the same event, resulted in him getting booed when he went to get his award.

In the tradition of BattleRapping, Triumph released a DissTrack, "I Keed", blasting Eminem for his oversensitivity and megalomaniac ego. Eminem, for his part, was hugely embarrassed by the incident, and collaborated with Triumph on his song, video and 2004 VMA performance of "Ass Like That", a SelfDeprecation-filled apology in which Slim raps in-character as the dog.

The plant-based, bald-headed electronic musician Music/{{Moby}} ended up becoming an enemy of Eminem starting from the 2001 UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s, in which, while defending Eminem's right to free speech, he called him "''a misogynist, homophobic, racist and [an] antisemite''", then accused Eminem of being secretly gay and in love with him. Eminem responded by dissing Moby and threatening to assault him at the 2002 [=VMAs=]. While Eminem insisted in interviews that the beef was a joke (and Moby assumed at first that it was), Eminem's hatred of the man was sincere enough to genuinely frighten Moby, make ''him'' genuinely frightened ''of'' Moby[[note]]see the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog section below for more of how ''that'' one turned out[[/note]], and result in Moby getting assaulted in real life by a gang of imitation Slim Shadies.

Creator/ChristopherReeve was an actor and disability rights campaigner best known for playing Film/{{Superman}} -- in a film that had a formative effect on the young Eminem -- and being rendered quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident in 1995. This made him the Unacceptable Target Of All Unacceptable Targets, making him an irresistible victim for Shady's pointless spite.

* {{Foil}} / MirrorCharacter: Much like many of Eminem's other anti-muses, Mariah and Eminem have a lot in common. Both are massive pop superstars who mainstreamed Black genres for white audiences, using a style that emphasises the technical, often-gimmicky tricks they can do with their own voices -- and both [[ButNotTooBlack faced discrimatory treatment for straddling racial boundaries]]. Both came from horrible broken homes and abusive relationships, both have had mental health problems as a result of being in the public eye, and both developed a robus sense of humour as a coping mechanism. The big difference is that Mariah absolutely ''loves'' all of the [[TheBeautifulElite extravagance and materialism]] that comes with fame, which Eminem finds dull. "Bagpipes From Baghdad" references this with an odd stream-of-consciousness passage mingling a description of Mariah's luxurious house and ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' satin bedspread with a description of Eminem's GenreBusting musical inspirations.

Triumph the InsultComic Dog is a canine CigarChomper {{Candid Camera Prank}}ster, originating as a skit on Creator/ConanOBrien's ''Series/LateNightWithConanOBrien''. A [[StylisticSuck deliberately crappy]] hand-puppet operated by the comedian and writer Robert Smigel, Triumph would appear at award shows to roast celebrities, which brought him into conflict with Eminem at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. Showing up to mock Eminem, the rapper instead pinched the puppet's jaw shut and pushed him out of his face, followed by his hypeman Proof taking his operator's script and throwing it at him. This made Eminem appear to be a fragile bully unable to even take criticism from a silly puppet -- which, along with his unwarranted hostility to Music/{{Moby}} at the same event, resulted in him getting booed when he went to get his award.

* BerserkButton: Eminem's strange behaviour at the 2002 [=VMAs=] was the result of being drunk and ImproperlyParanoid about his beef with Music/{{Moby}}. MTV had [[WaxingLyrical switched the chairs so he could sit next to]] Moby to create some tension between them, making Eminem suspect Moby was setting something up to make him look stupid. Once the puppet dog showed up, Eminem viewed it as being an associate of Moby putting his hand in his face, and attempted to forcefully but peacibly shut the situation down. Much of this was because Eminem was still viewing his new mainstream-celebrity environment through a rap-beef lens and assuming the well paid entertainers around him would be as hostile as gang-affiliated Detroit battle-rap crews; upon realising how ridiculous he'd come across and how everyone now was too scared of him to have normal conversations, he [[MessOfWoe trashed the Green Room in a tantrum]].

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Moby is a minor foe by the standards of Eminem's beefs, but due to the massive success of "Without Me" and the level of cultural saturation Eminem enjoyed in 2002, it's probably his best known amongst the general public. In fact, it's probably the main reason why Moby is still famous. (Apart from [[OvershadowedByControversy that stuff that came out in the mid-2010s about -- ironically -- Moby's rampant misogyny]].)

The plant-based, bald-headed electronic musician Music/{{Moby}} ended up becoming an enemy of Eminem starting from the 2001 UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s, in which, while defending Eminem's right to free speech, he called him "a misogynist, homophobic, racist and [an] antisemite", then accused Eminem of being secretly gay and in love with him. Eminem responded by dissing Moby and threatening to assault him at the 2002 [=VMAs=]. While Eminem insisted in interviews that the beef was a joke (and Moby assumed at first that it was), Eminem's hatred of the man was sincere enough to genuinely frighten Moby, make ''him'' genuinely frightened ''of'' Moby[[note]]see the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog section below for more of how ''that'' one turned out[[/note]], and result in Moby getting assaulted in real life by a gang of imitation Slim Shadies.

[[caption-width-right:350:You don't know me, you're too old, let go, it's over -- ''nobody listens to techno!!'']]

The plant-based, bald-headed electronic musician Music/{{Moby}} ended up becoming an enemy of Eminem starting from the 2001 Grammys, in which, while defending Eminem's right to free speech, he called him "''a misogynist, homophobic, racist and [an] antisemite''", then accused Eminem of being secretly gay and in love with him. Eminem responded by dissing Moby and threatening to assault him at the 2002 [=VMAs=]. While Eminem insisted in interviews that the beef was a joke (and Moby assumed at first that it was), Eminem's hatred of the man was sincere enough to genuinely frighten Moby, make ''him'' genuinely frightened ''of'' Moby[[note]]see the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog section below for more of how ''that'' one turned out[[/note]] -- and result in Moby getting assaulted in real life by a gang of imitation Slim Shadies.

Eminem's AnswerSong, "Killshot", is not only the highest charting DissTrack of all time (as of 2022), but was Eminem's most critically-acclaimed project since ''Music/TheEminemShow'', serving as a CareerResurrection for him. Eminem has claimed he's moved on from the beef, but apparently not enough for him to resist gloating about it in "Yah Yah", "Unaccommodating", "No Regrets" and "Gospel".

Creator/ChristopherReeve was an actor and disability rights campaigner best known for playing Film/{{Superman}} -- in a film that had a formative effect on the young Eminem -- and being rendered quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident in 1995. This made him the [[UnacceptableTargets Unacceptable Target Of All Unacceptable Targets]], making him an irresistible victim for Shady's pointless spite.

* BadImpressionists: Eminem, a ManOfAThousandVoices whose vocal range is one of his strongest attributes as a performer, could easily have done a realistic impersonation of Creator/ChristopherReeve if he'd wanted to. Instead he gives him a MachineMonotone that serves to indicate his total lack of research - and therefore the fact that [[UnacceptableTargets it's not really personal]].

Eminem's habit of MuseAbuse, {{Take That}}s and [[{{Jerkass}} just starting shit for little reason]] has led to him making a lot of enemies. Enough that they had to be split from his main Characters page.

-->--Eminem, "Wicked Ways"