Characters / Eminem — Beefs

I’m sellin' hatred buffet style.
All the shit you can eat, $11.99! So come on and pile a plate!
I’m throwin' down the gauntlet to see what hell I can raise
with the rhyme I’m spittin', while I’m shittin' on competition —
In the meantime, it’s always mean-time.

— Eminem, "Wicked Ways"

Eminem's habit of Muse Abuse, Take Thats and 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.

Due to the nature of Eminem's work, this page is reserved for recurring punchbags, anti-muses, and beefs that had a significant impact on Eminem's life and career. For an exhaustive list of everyone Eminem has insulted in a song, a better place to start is Genius's archive of Eminem's name drops.

Note also that a character not being listed on this page (e.g. Mom, Dad, Stepdad, Kim, Steve Berman, Slim Shady) should by no means indicate that they are not beefing with Slim Shady.

Wait a minute, what am I sayin'? Allow me to run it back and rewind to the Main characters page — *blblblblblblblb* —

Beefs

DeAngelo Bailey

The school bully of a young Marshall, once battering him so severely he ended up comatose from a cerebral haemorrhage (which both Eminem and his mother has claimed was responsible for some of his mental health problems). He appears in the song "Brain Damage", a Life Embellished account of the incident. Eminem never mentioned him again in his music, but he made a vague allusion to the lawsuit Bailey slapped him with in "Without Me".

Tropes applying to Bailey:

• Barbaric Bully: The beatdown he inflicts on the young Slim is so serious his shirt is soaked with blood.
• Bully Brutality: Bailey intends to actually kill Slim - Slim has to hold his breath and pretend to be dead for five whole minutes before Bailey (and the Principal) will leave.
• Fat Bastard: Bailey was the "fat kid" who bullied much smaller targets like Slim was at the time.
• Freudian Excuse: Slim implies that Bailey bullies other kids because his father beats him.
• Glass Cannon: 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.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: He shows young Slim absolutely no mercy once he has him cornered.
  He banged my head against the urinal till he broke my nose
  Soaked my clothes in blood, grabbed me and choked my throat
  I tried to plead and tell him "We shouldn't beef"
  But he just wouldn't leave, he kept chokin' me and I couldn't breathe
• Persecution Flip: Bailey (who is Black) screams racist language at Slim (white) before battering him, but Slim appears to think Bailey just targeted him because he was small and weird.
• Start of Darkness: Subverted. While in real life, Bailey's assault gave Eminem brain damage, in the song, it isn't what causes Shady to develop the brain damage that made him Ax-Crazy — that happened courtesy of casual abuse from his Mom. And in Slim's account, he was born disordered anyway - in the hook, he says "ever since the day I was born, drugs're what they used to say I was on".
• Thin-Skinned Bully: As vicious as Bailey is, he goes down rather quickly once Shady decides enough is enough and fights back.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In real life, while Bailey did bully Marshall Mathers as brutally as shown here, some details (like their ages) were embellished while others (the teachers and principal helping Bailey, and Slim taking violent revenge with a broom) are clearly fiction. The real-life Bailey tried to sue Eminem for defamation of character after "Brain Damage" came out, only for the judge to dismiss the case via impromptu rap freestyle (yes, this really happened) partially on the grounds that the song's content is so transparently fictional that no sensible person would ever believe it.
• Villain with Good Publicity: When the school principal happens upon Bailey kicking Slim's ass, he enthusiastically joins in. More generally, the teachers seem to be well aware of Bailey's violent behavior but have zero interest in stopping it.

Benzino

Ray Benzino, former editor of The Source, entered a beef with Eminem in the early 2000s. Eminem, who had been making swipes at The Source since they gave a mediocre review to Young Zee's Musical Meltdown^note Zee was a member of Outsidaz, a New Jersey collective of which Eminem was also a loose member, had claimed The Source was biased against him for his race when the magazine gave The Eminem Show a four out of five mics, resulting in Benzino repeatedly dissing him on the basis that Eminem was a racist stealing hip-hop. Eminem's attempts to take Benzino down and clear his name was largely successful, highlighting Benzino's unsavory editorial practices and getting him deposed from his magazine by his own staff. While Eminem would not emerge from the beef with his reputation unscathed, Benzino's ended up in tatters, now mostly remembered for inspiring several of Eminem's meanest and funniest songs. And a couple of his most mature and meaningful. And several of his silliest.

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 released a diss track about him in 2024, "Doomsday Pt. 2", due to Benzino taking an anti-Eminem media circuit.

Tropes applying to Benzino in Eminem's music:

• Addled Addict: In Eminem's telling, Benzino's a paranoid due to his prodigious abuse of weed. (Eminem, at the time, had told the media he'd given up drugs and was having fun being a Smug Straight Edge about it. Unfortunately, this was not the case.)
• Arc Fatigue: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 Encore!'s Album Filler 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 Arch-Nemesis and continued slinging insults at him on-and-off for several decades. He eventually got banned from Twitter for insulting Eminem on there in the 2020s, and is beefing with him to this day.
• Arch-Nemesis: 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. Eminem inexplicably returning to diss him in the mid-2020s appears to reinforce this relationship.
• Bias Steamroller: In "Bad Influence", Slim pokes fun at the dissonance between The Source's mediocre reviews of him, and everybody else's praise:
  But I would like an award for The Best Rapper To Get One Mic In The Source...
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Slim's bratty personality tends to come out around Benzino. It's most prominent in "Big Weenie", where Em excoriates Benzino's tendency to "say all these really mean things because you are a meanie". Downplayed in "Doomsday Pt. 2", where Slim's initial objections to Benzino revolve around his bizarre physical build, calling him [the opposite of] a giraffe.
• Berserk Button: In "Bully", seeing Eminem on MTV is enough to set him spinning and spiralling in a Tasmanian Devil-like fury.
• Boisterous Weakling: Described by Eminem as "a 83-year-old fake Pacino" talking big and having no ability to back it up.
  What's little and talks big?
• Boomerang Bigot: Eminem flings racist rhetoric at, specifically, Benzino's white side, calling him a white rapper and "Vanilla Ice", and pointing out that they both have a shared experience of being rejected for the colour of their skin in hip-hop.
• Four-Point Scale: Discussed in "The Sauce", in which Eminem explains that if you get a 3 out of 5 mics, you suck, if you get a 4, you're dope, and if you get a 5, you're either The Notorious B.I.G. or Benzino. (Benzino had been known to give 5 mic scores to his own projects or associated acts, which even his own magazine staff, such as Kim Osorio, called him out on.)
• Da Editor: Eminem uses imagery associated with this to mock him, describing him as spinning around in his executive chair with his sleeves rolled up, with his feet up at his desk, bellowing at his underlings and smoking (weed, instead of the stereotypical cigars).
• Driven by Envy: Benzino is described as being motivated by jealousy, both of Eminem's success and his abilities as a rapper.
• Entitled Bastard: At the beginning of "Bully", Em sings in-character as Benzino for a couple of bars, saying he's entitled to have Eminem fuss over him, and viewing Eminem ignoring him as 'a complete lack of respect'.
• Everything Is Racist: Eminem thinks Benzino accused him of racism simply for being a better rapper than him. This characterisation is used on numerous songs, such as his hypothetical campaign against Justin Timberlake for being a racist for having sex with Britney Spears in "My 1st Single".
• Forced Out of the Closet: Eminem's main attack on Benzino in "Doomsday Pt. 2" is to out him as on the DL. While Eminem being homophobic isn't surprising, he'd toned this aspect of his music down significantly since the 2000s, indicating just how little Eminem can stand him.
• High-Altitude Interrogation: "Nail In The Coffin" imagines a scene of Benzino trying this on Em, but being so physically weak that Em's (meagre) weight pulls him out of the window too, resulting in Benzino ending up "all over the street, like 50 Cent".
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: In "Bully", Eminem suggests that Benzino's belligerence is because deep down he's just depressed.
• Inspirational Insult: "Nail In The Coffin" is presented as some Brutal Honesty from Eminem to the older man, pointing out his career is over and he can still have a little bit of dignity if he stops fighting it.
• Jaded Washout: In Em's characterisation, Benzino is an ageing tyrant realising he lost his opportunity at success and picking a fight with a wildly popular rapper to try and gain some relevance.
• Nerdy Bully: Eminem imagines him as this in "Bully", an immature and fixated schoolboy geek using his magazine to say mean things about his victim because he is too cowardly to actually fight him like a man.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Despite Eminem's mocking of Benzino as a gnat compared to him, his unveiling of Eminem's embarrassing teenage "Foolish Pride" song did permanent damage to Eminem and is still controversial today with some audiences. Eminem commented in interviews that what Ray did was the only thing that could have brought down Eminem.
• Outside/Inside Slur: "I got a riddle! What's little and talks big, with two midget arms and creamy white fillin' in the middle?"
• Perilous Old Fool: Eminem repeatedly mocks him for his willingness to believe he's a violent gangster at his age (in early middle age at the time of the beef) - "nobody wants to hear their grandfather rap!". While some point out the fact that Eminem is currently older than Benzino was at the time of the beef, Em's view of it was more to do with Benzino's abilities, wondering why "the worst rapper in the world" would decide to go up against himself, one of the best.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Eminem characterises him as a mean incompetent, floated into his position by The Source's white owners.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Destroying Benzino's career is one of Eminem's proudest moments as a battle rapper. In "Killshot", there's a brief Continuity Cavalcade of Benzino references as Eminem emphasises to Machine Gun Kelly 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, like the last motherfucker saying 'Hailie' in vain!... nails, in these, coffins^note a reference to his Benzino diss "Nail In The Coffin" as soft as Cottonelle..."
• Skewed Priorities: In "My 1st Single," Benzino gets hold of child porn starring Brittney Spears and Justin Timberlake, and all he cares about is that it sounded like Justin said the N-word when he was actually saying something entirely different.
• Slimeball: His basic characterisation in Eminem's disses is a repulsive, unhygienic washout running his magazine like a tyrant and willing to stoop to any muckraking low to assuage his ego.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Eminem casts him as a mediocre talent convinced he's a far better rapper and editor than he actually is, targeting Eminem out of envy that deep down, he knows what he is.
• Stage Dad:
  • In "Nail In The Coffin", Eminem snarls that, unlike Benzino, he would never try and make his daughter into a star so he could exploit her for money. This was in reference to Benzino promoting his son Ray Ray's rap career, but has become Hilarious in Hindsight after Benzino's daughter Coi Leray accused him of trying to sponge off her success.
  • In "The Sauce", he accuses Benzino of using Ray Ray to get some vicarious fame "because you missed your boat".
• Take That, Critics!: As editor of The Source, Benzino was technically a music critic, which is why Eminem started to come at him in the first place — presumably Timothy White (the *Billboard* writer who picketed the Interscope offices every night back on "Bitch Please II") was only saved from a Diss Track war due to the fact he didn't put it on wax.
• Worst News Judgment Ever: In "My 1st Single", The Source get hold of an underage sex tape of Britney with her then boyfriend Justin Timberlake, at a time when culture was obsessed with her virginity. Instead, Benzino's story on it is based on the idea that Justin's Grunting Orgasm sounded a little bit like the N-word.
• Would Hurt a Child: Benzino's threats to shoot Hailie resulted in the beef getting as heated as it did.
• You Are What You Hate: In Eminem's telling, Benzino's Black nationalism is embarrassing, seeing as he's half-white, with white family members, and working for a white magazine owner. "Vanilla Ice, spill the beans and rice!".
• "You're Just Jealous: ...of me because you, you just can't do what I do, so you just look like an idiot, so instead of just admitting it, you walk around and say all kinds of really mean things about me 'cause you're a meanie. A meanie."
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Throughout "Nail In The Coffin", Eminem dares Benzino to make good on all his violent threats, seeing as his old age and total lack of cultural significance or money would prevent him from doing any of it.

Canibus

Canibus is a battle rapper from Canada^note in Eminem's telling – in reality, he is from Jamaica known for his hyperlexic lyrical style filled with spiritual and scientific imagery, and for getting his ass handed to him in a beef with LL Cool J which managed to drag in Eminem. This beef is notable for its semi-affectionate tone, with both rappers having respect for each other's abilities… but not each others' personalities or politics.

In 1998, Canibus was being mentored by Wyclef Jean, on the verge of hitting the mainstream, and had just been slapped by "The Ripper Strikes Back", an LL Cool J Diss Track against him. Wyclef claimed "The Ripper Strikes Back" was ghostwritten by Eminem, which Eminem denied. Regardless, Eminem offered Bus a guest verse on his upcoming album, The Slim Shady LP; Bus turned it down, worrying the fat, acne-riddled, bespectacled, brunette and above all pallid rapper would be a flash-in-the-pan novelty artist. Canibus released his major label debut album Can-I-Bus which underperformed and got him dropped by his label – Eminem, by now transformed by exercise, skincare, contact lenses, and above all hydrogen peroxide, released his major label debut album to massive commercial and critical success. When Eminem then turned down the opportunity for a guest feature on Bus's song "Phuck U", Bus felt Eminem had pulled the ladder up behind him, and the two rappers began going at it in passive-aggressive earnest.

Eminem's irritation with Bus was at its strongest in 2002, when Bus released a Concept Album in character as Stan from "Stan", using the character to promote reactionary and jingoistic politics that infuriated the liberal, LGBT-supporting, Bush-bashing Marshall. Eminem accompanying LL Cool J's induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2021, in which LL's speech at the end thanked Canibus, is the closest the beef has come to being squashed.

Canibus appears in "Role Model", "Get U Mad", "Square Dance", "Can-I-Bitch", "Nail In The Coffin", "I'm Marshall", "My Name", "Love Me (Freestyle)" and "Bang", as well as various skits (especially the "Funkmaster Flex" skit on Obie Trice's Cheers). Various songs are considered to contain subliminal disses to him, of which the most likely candidates are "Business", "Without Me", "Say What You Say" and "When The Music Stops".

Tropes associated with Canibus in Eminem's telling:

• Answer Song:
  • While it's far outlived the record it answered, "Square Dance" is a response to Canibus's "Draft Me", in which Canibus expressed support for a US military draft so he could go kill some terrorists. "Square Dance" attempts to persuade Eminem's young fans that War Is Hell and to dodge any draft that comes for them, while also flinging insults at "Canibitch".
  • Canibus released an entire answer album to "Stan", C! True Hollywood Stories, in which he and his posse save Stan from drowning, leading him to become a great rapper and a soldier winning the War on Terror. Eminem mocked him for doing this in his response song, "Can-I-Bitch", in which he mocked Bus for turning his character into a Possession Sueinvoked, calling him "Stanibus".
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Eminem loved using this to undercut Canibus's grandiose style, using intentionally crude insults like calling him "Canibitch" and making fun of his voice.
• Body Paint: Canibus was painted silver for his performance at the 1998 VMAs. In "Can I Bitch", Eminem imagines a scene of Bus getting Wyclef to paint his ass.
• Copycat Mockery: Eminem does an 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.
• Courteous Canadian: 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 Battle Rapping skills.
• Faux Symbolisminvoked: Eminem's caricature of Bus's lyrics turns them into this kind of gibberish.
  ...before metaphors were Reservoir Dogs, before Christ was hung on the cross, before—(gets gunned down by Slim)
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Eminem responds to Canibus writing a concept album from the perspective of a resurrected Stan by calling him "Stanibus", suggesting Bus must relate to Stan so much because they're both gay stalkers.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Eminem casts Bus as this, especially in "Can-I-Bitch" – a miserable supervillain whose CD didn't sell mailing bomb threats to Shady Records, which Slim ignores until he realises that Bus is gay for him and goes to beat him up for that reason. When Dre and Slim's Dynamic Duo catch up with Bus on the bridge from "Stan", Bus doesn't even bother to fight back, resulting in Slim begging him to hit him or "do something!"
• Inspirational Insult: "Can I Bitch" was a response to an entire diss Concept Album from Canibus, C! True Hollywood Stories, in which Canibus rapped in character as Stan from Eminem's famous song, dumbing down his signature Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness into a pastiche of Eminem's flow as part of the process. "Can I Bitch" is a deliberately childish-sounding track, designed so that Canibus wouldn't take the insults to heart, and tells the story of Eminem and Dr. Dre driving to fight Canibus in the Batmobile while mourning Canibus changing his distinctive style. When they meet him, Canibus won't fight back, culminating in a long speech from Eminem in which he begs Canibus to stand up for himself, implying Bus could have a dedicated fandom like him if he got his act together. Canibus got the message, releasing several albums in something closer to his original style and allowing the beef to cool off. Until 2009, anyway.
  Hold up! Bus, quit foldin' up!
  Punch me in the chest, make my shoulders touch!
  Do something! At least one punchline!
  Come on! 'Til the meter reads Nine! Nine! Nine-^note a reference to a Canibus lyric from "How We Roll" - "I'll hop into the back seat of a cab and rhyme till the meter says Nine, Nine, Nine, Nine!"
  -ty nine percent of my fans are blond! ^note a reference to a Canibus lyric dissing LL Cool J - "99% of Cool J's fans wear high heels". LL responded with the ice-cold "99% of Canibus's fans don't exist". Eminem subtly reminds Canibus of LL's insult, but turns it into a brag about his own scarily dedicated fandom, implying Canibus could have one of his own if he tried harder.
  Bus, come on, answer me, man, respond!
  Tell me 'bout the sun, rain, moon and stars!
  Intergalactical metaphors from Mars! ^note a reference to Canibus's melodramatic, grandiose style
  Raw to the floor, raw like Reservoir Dogs!
  Bite another line from Redman's song! ^note Redman used the line "raw like Reservoir Dogs" in "How High" - Canibus later bragged "'Bus is raw, raw to the floor, raw like reservoirs" in "The Rip Off". "Raw" in hip-hop slang means original, so Eminem is mocking him for plagiarising his boasts about being original.
• Internet Jerk: Eminem imagines Bus as this due to his tech background and his occasional references in his lyrics to forum battles, calling him a "nerdy internet-computer hip-hop head".
• Malicious Misnaming: Eminem calls him "Canibitch", "Stanibus", "Fanibitch", "Canada-diss" and "Kenny 'Fag' Kaniff".
• Opponent Instruction: "Can-I-Bitch" contains numerous scenes of Eminem begging Bus to stop emulatinginvoked Eminem's style and sound to get successful, and go back to the "style you was rappin' with when you was scandalous". Canibus took this advice, and released several albums that were, while not Eminem-successful, far more critically acclaimed.
• Stealth Insult: "Role Model"'s opening lyric "I'm cancerous, so when I diss, you wouldn't wanna answer this if you responded back with a battle rap you wrote for Canibus" puzzled Bus as he couldn't figure out if it was an insult or not. On the one hand, the boast only makes sense if Canibus's battle raps were the strongest rhymes available. On the other hand, it implies Canibus uses ghostwriters – especially nasty considering Eminem's accusation of ghostwriting for LL.
• Technobabble: Canibus's background in the tech industry led to him developing a tremendous vocabulary of STEM jargon. Eminem parodies this by mocking his style with sesquipedalian scientific gibberish.
• Too Quirky to Lose: "Can-I-Bitch", a Psychedelic Comedy Bromance song so silly that Bus couldn't reply, as he couldn't even figure out if it was supposed to insult him.

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon

Mariah Carey is an R&B and gospel singer-songwriter famous for her Melismatic Vocals and her early willingness to record crossover songs with hip-hop stars — a willingness that brought her into contact with Eminem, when she approached him in 2001 in order to trade guest verses (with her being set to appear on The Eminem Show, and him being set to appear on Charmbracelet). This did not end up happening.

The actual circumstances of what went on between the musicians is unclear, as both have a contradictory story and both are lying. In Mariah's telling, they never had a relationship and barely knew each other — but he inspired two Diss Tracks from her, and she has a habit of denying failed romantic relationships, even ones that were extensively documented. Eminem has claimed they were not only dating but did all kinds of gross sex acts, and that Mariah is a drunk — but he would later backtrack on most of these claims, later claiming he was too bad at sex for her to be willing to sleep with him more than once. He's claimed he has compromising voice mails of her and used these in stage shows, but it's likely this was audio they made for their musical collaborations.

However, Mariah remains a fixture in Eminem's lyrical mixture, with her then-husband Nick Cannon (a former child star and reality TV host) inserting himself in the dispute in 2009 to defend his wife from Eminem's "racism". She appears in "Superman", "When The Music Stops", live performances of "Ass Like That", 2005 Anger Management Tour stage skits, "Jimmy Crack Corn", "Bagpipes From Baghdad" and "The Warning". "Puke" is about Kim, but appears to have been inspired by Mariah in part. Nick appears in "Bagpipes From Baghdad", "The Warning", "Lord Above"... and a lot of subliminals, possibly.

Tropes applying to Mariah and Nick:

• Celebrity Breakup Song: "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.
• Comically Lopsided Rivalry: Eminem's only actually "dissed" Nick in "Bagpipes from Baghdad", and has claimed that Nick misinterpreted the song, which had been intended to wish the lovers good luck (though it's not hard to see how he could have "misinterpreted" lyrics like "I mean, I really want you bad, you cunt — Nick, you had your fun, I've come to kick you in your sack of junk"). Nick has released numerous diss tracks against Eminem, including posse cuts, for over a decade, without inspiring more than the occasional subliminal telling him to come back when he can rap while keeping on time with the snare. Eminem continued to No-Sell his attempts until 2019, when he sent him a couple of insulting tweets in response to Nick trying to smear him as secretly gay.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Slim has claimed to have the same tattoo that's on Nick's back (a giant tattoo of Mariah's name).
• Internet Jerk: In "On Fire", Nick gets a subliminal diss for shitting on him in an unhinged blog post.
• Instant Turn-Off: According to Eminem, Mariah lost interest in him after he came too early.
• Lady Drunk: Em calls her a drunk in both "Superman" and "Bagpipes From Baghdad".
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: In "On Fire", Em baits Nick by warning him, "So, the next time you blog, try to spit a flow — you want to criticize, dog? Try a little mo'!"
• Loves My Alter Ego: In the alleged voice clips, Mariah moans for "Slim Shady" — never Marshall. Probably, this is because the voice clips were recorded for a song or skit, but it doesn't give the impression the lovers had a particularly deep emotional connection.
• Melismatic Vocals: Some fans think Eminem's use of melismatic vowels on the Misogyny Song "Puke" are him making fun of Mariah Carey's iconic vocal style — a reading supported by the fact that he opened live performances of "Puke" by playing Mariah Carey's alleged sexy voice mails.
• Misogyny Song: Mariah seems to have inspired a lot of Eminem's uglier songs in this regard, with "Superman" being particularly brutal.
• Muse Abuse: In "Bagpipes From Baghdad", Eminem cooes at Mariah, "you can be a fixture in my lyrical mixture", damning her to a lifetime of this.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: In Eminem's telling, Mariah's an absolute lunatic, denying they had any connection to make him look stupid in public while also insulting him.
• Speak of the Devil: In "These Demons":
  I got a question.
  What?
  What rhymes with "pariah"?
  I don't know.
  Mm, uh, LEGO?
  Oh shit.
• Speed Sex: In "The Warning", Eminem claims he "nutted early", which grossed out Mariah and made her claim she was going to puke. If true, it possibly inspired the similar sequence in "Superman", which casts Slim as the lover threatening to vomit, and hints at how much Mariah inspired "Puke". (Friends of Mariah have claimed Eminem's bedroom performance was even worse, and that he Jizzed In His Pants before he could even get his clothes off, which would go some way to explaining the intensity of Mariah's disappointment and disgust.)
• Terms of Endangerment: In "The Warning", Em goes back and forth with voice clips of Mariah, using what he claims is their sexy nicknames for each other. Mariah calls him "Artful Dodger" and "Superhero". Eminem calls her "Mary Poppins" and "Pumpkin".
• The Prima Donna: 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".
• Torture Cellar: In "Bagpipes From Baghdad", Mariah is amusingly accused of having a wine cellar she uses as a dungeon. She keeps Slim locked up in it.
• Voice Clip Song: The third verse of "The Warning" has Slim rhyming back and forth with cut-up voice clips of Mariah.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Busta Rhymes, a great fan of Eminem and a good friend of Mariah, stepped in to intervene with the beef after Eminem's threat to release revenge porn of Mariah in "The Warning" went too far.

Machine Gun Kelly

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!

Machine Gun Kelly is a rapper, actor and, later, pop punk musician 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 Answer Song, "Killshot", is not only the highest-charting Diss Track of all time (as of 2022), but was Eminem's most critically acclaimed project since The Eminem Show, serving as a Career Resurrection 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.

Tropes applying to Machine Gun Kelly in Eminem's telling:

• Baddie Flattery: Kelly is such a Stan that he couldn't resist praising Eminem even on his diss track. Eminem is suitably bemused by this, outright asking if "Rap Devil" was meant to be "a death threat or a love letter?"
  Wait, you just dissed me? I'm perplexed
  Insult me on a line, compliment me on the next
• Calling the Old Man Out: Kells insulted Em by accusing him of unfair actions and calling him "Dad", which Em plays along with, acting like a condescending "Well Done, Son" Guy who calls Kells "son" and awards him "a B for the effort".
• Combat Compliment:
  • While Eminem does not view MGK as a worthy opponent, he compliments "Rap Devil" twice in "Killshot" — first giving it "a B for the effort", and second, by thanking MGK for writing it in the first place, giving him the retroactive justification for having gone in on him. It's worth making the observation that Kells may have got his praise for being the first rapper of note to drop a full Answer Song in response to getting insulted on Kamikaze — and as it turned out, the only one. All other responses to the album were tweets, podcasts, and one or two freestyles and throwaway sublims.
  • In Em's Kamikaze interview with Crook, he admitted that "Rap Devil" was a good diss... for Kells. Obie Trice also stated his opinion that "Rap Devil" is the strongest diss Eminem was ever hit with.
  • Kells also got in on this — in "Rap Devil", he praises "Not Alike" as a strong diss. Eminem responds by thanking him for his part in its creation.
• Compliment Backfire: MGK's strategy of creating a dramatic A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil dynamic by calling Eminem "the greatest rapper alive", his former hero and inspiration, praising the diss track he made about him, gushing about his greatness, the movie they made about him, etc., just results in Eminem mocking him for being a Loony Stan in love with him.
• Damned By a Fool's Praise: 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 Creator Backlashinvoked to his Recovery musical style and persona.
• Dirty Coward: Eminem is unimpressed with MGK's initial reluctance to confront him directly, instead hiding behind stealth insults in another rapper's posse cut.
• Emasculated Cuckold: Em theorizes in "Killshot" that Kells' attitude is because Halsey is sleeping with G-Eazy. (Kells had claimed he was fucking her behind G-Eazy's back in a freestyle; Eminem flips this around to make Kells the cuckold.)
• Evil Is Petty: "Let's see who can out-petty who." (It's Eminem, whose reason for dissing MGK is that he just doesn't like him.)
• Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind: Kells is so worried about his stylish fashion that it detracts from his ability to rap. In contrast, Em is one of the most iconic rappers of all time yet has a much more casual fashion sense.
  Your red sweater, your black leather
  You dress better? I rap better
• Foe Romance Subtext: Eminem is confused by how gushing Kells' diss is, and wonders if he was sent a love letter. (A flip of Kells' accusations in "Rap Devil" that Eminem wrote a whole album about him^note he didn't — Kells gets a verse to himself in "Not Alike" and a jab on "The Ringer", and nothing else, so he must be in love with him. In Em's telling, Kells is an erotomaniac Stan just for making that assertion.)
• Gay Bravado: "Killshot" ends with Em telling Kells to keep Em's dick in his mouth and stop talking about his daughter.
• Go and Sin No More: In "Unaccommodating", Eminem forgives Kells with explicitly religious language, saying that God forgives everyone, even devil worshippers.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Eminem uses MGK's man-bun to deride him as a harmless, pseudo-rebellious weakling.
• Heart Beatdown: In "Not Alike", Eminem can't lose in a rap battle against Kells because Em — defending his daughter — has The Power of Love on his side.
  Heavy artille—ry, Godzilla harsh with a hard shell
  With a motherfucking heart bigger than Bizarre's belly
• He's Back!: After the insecurity of Revival and the nervous Can't Take Criticism of Kamikaze, Machine Gun Kelly's diss could well have finished Eminem's career off. However, his inability to insult Eminem without praising him and equivocating the two of them forced Em to retort by reminding MGK how inferior he was in comparison, resulting in "Killshot" being a well-earned Boastful Rap cut without a shred of Self-Deprecation.
  The game's mineinvoked again, and ain't nothing changed but the locks!
• Hollywood Homely:invoked Kells called Eminem 'ugly' in "Rap God", so Eminem responds by saying Kells is better dressed but not better looking, describing him as a "little white toothpick" ripping off Eminem's blond-hair-and-earrings look. Objectively speaking, both men are professionally handsome and both were cute and boyish-looking enough to have careers as Teen Idols well into their 30s.
• Hollywood Satanism: Eminem, a proud Christian who never went the devil-worship route even as a shock-rapper during the tail end of the Satanic Panic, accuses Kells of being this for his edgy devil imagery and antagonism towards the Rap God.
• Insult Backfire:
  • Kells attempts to cast Eminem as an old man soaking up attention past his prime, refusing to allow young rappers like him to compete or to speak to the young. Eminem agrees that he's way more popular and successful than Kells, remains the poet of choice for the world's angry ten-year-olds, and that no other rappers can measure up to him.
  • Kells jeers at Eminem for not going outside — "last time you saw 8 Mile was on a treadmill!"^note punning off the actual 8 Mile Road in Detroit for which the movie was named. Eminem happily replies that he was "watching 8 Mile on my NordicTrack", reminding Kells he's a movie star with a premium home gym.
  • Kells insults Em for being a nerd, reading the dictionary and staying inside. Eminem announces that he only reads when he's taking a shit... in Kelly's Cheerios. Where's the dictionary?
• Insult Friendly Fire: Kells mocked Eminem for being still miserable despite being a rich pop star, while Kells himself is also a multi-millionaire who makes music about his mental illnesses, insecurities, drug issues and the indignities of fame. Eminem sarcastically points this out — "oh, you broke, bitch?"
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Eminem, annoyed by his iconic 2000s look being copied by MGK's bleached hair and silver earrings, offers him even more of his clothes to wear and tells him to go and fuck Kim in them, knowing it won't bring him an inch closer to being the real thing.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Eminem characterizes him as someone who wants to be an edgy gangsta but just doesn't have what it takes to pull it off.
• I Just Want to Be You: In Eminem's characterisation, Kells wants to be Eminem so bad he'd suck a cock just to be him for a second.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: Eminem is not impressed by Kells trying to insult him for having a run of bad albums but not knowing how many albums came out between "Rap Devil" and Em's supposed last good album, Recovery.
  Know your facts before you come at me, you li'l goof.
• Knocking the Knockoff: 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.
• Legacy Character: 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 Stan (directly quoting that song as well).
• Libation for the Dead: 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."
• Life Imitates Art: invoked Eminem alludes to the similarities between MGK's behavior and that of Stan, a character Em created as a caricature of his own most obsessive and toxic fans.
• Loony Fan: He's such an obsessive fan and hater that Eminem compares him to Stan.
• Motive Misidentification: Kells accused Eminem of dissing him for calling his daughter hot. Eminem responded that it was actually because "I just don't like you, prick".
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicityinvoked: Discussed. As Eminem explains in "Killshot", he was struggling with whether or not to diss him, knowing it would only do MGK favours. "You're a molehill, now I'll make a mountain out of you!... Have to give you a career to destroy it!" He's also refused to perform "Killshot" live due to his refusal to give Kells more publicity than necessary. Kells's career has done better since the beef, but at the cost of making him a Memetic Loser.
• Pædo Hunt: Again, MGK didn't know Hailie was underaged when he tried to put the moves on her, but Eminem still couldn't resist this Obligatory Joke in response:
  But you already know who the fuck you are, Kelly
• Premature Birth Drama: In "Yah Yah", Slim claims he married the rap game, impregnated her, and in three months she had a premature baby named Machine Gun Kelly.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Eminem mocks MGK's attempts at painting himself as a macho gangsta as corny and unconvincing.
  You say you affiliated with murderers, killers (Ayy!)
  The people you run with are thuggin' (Gang!)
  But you just a wannabe gunner (Gang!)
  
  You ain't never even been charged in connection with battery
  Bitch, you ain't plugged into nothin'
• Rated G for Gangsta: Eminem mocks the dissonance between MGK's wannabe-gangsta demeanor and non-threatening appearance.
  How you gonna name yourself after a damn gun and have a man-bun?
• Schmuck Bait: Whether due to bravery, foolhardiness or lack of better career options, he was the only rapper Eminem dissed on Kamikaze to record a full Answer Song in response — none of Eminem's other victims were willing to risk it. Eminem's griping he hoped everyone he'd insulted didn't respond or he'd be stuck recording Answer Songs for years may very well have been Briar Patching, and, with "Killshot" serving to elevate Em after a rough time in his career, his line "thanks for dissing me!" may not have been entirely sarcastic.
• Tattoo as Character Type: Em disparagingly describes MGK as a "tatted-up mumble-rapper". Notable because Kells doesn't make 'mumble rap' — his style is a Midwest rapid chopping style with some Trap Music influences — and he objected to this line for that reason, stating later that it proved Eminem didn't know what he was talking about. It seems Eminem's point had actually been that, regardless of Kells's actual rapping style, the tattoos similarly prove he's a trend-rider with abysmal aesthetic judgement. He also mocked the tattoos in a pre-release video for "Killshot" which showed him playing Pac-Man, referencing the Pac-Man tattoos around Kells's neck.
• Terms of Endangerment / Do Not Call Me 'Marshall': In "Rap Devil", Kells refers to Eminem as "Marshall" ("Hello Marshall! My name's Colson. You should go back to Recovery.") When Eminem paraphrases him in "Killshot", he corrects it to "Slim" (""Yo, Slim, your last four albums sucked, go back to Recovery!!"), implying Kells does not have the right to address the real Marshall and should stick to dealing with the evil twin.
• Threat Backfire: Eminem's actually delighted to have been dissed, because it gives him an excuse to have hated him.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: As mentioned under In-Universe Factoid Failure above, MGK said in "Rap Devil" that Eminem's last four albums sucked before telling him to go back to sounding like he did on Recovery… which was part of his last four albums at the time. Oops!
• Younger and Hipper: Kells positions himself as this, claiming he represents his Millennial generation against the old guard. Eminem flips it, reminding Kells that, despite being middle-aged, his own audience is ten-year-olds — the twenty-and-thirty-somethings are comparatively geriatric — and says that he'd rather be himself at 80 years old than Kells at 20.

Moby

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 Moby ended up becoming an enemy of Eminem starting from the 2001 Grammy Awards, 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, and result in Moby getting assaulted in real life by a gang of imitation Slim Shadies.

Moby appears in "Without Me" (and its video), "My Name", "Don't Front", a skit during his The Eminem Show-era live performances, and numerous interviews.

Tropes associated with Moby in Eminem's telling:

• Ambiguously Gay: Eminem gives him a trilling, effeminate voice in the Anger Management Tour skit. In the music video for "Without Me", he's depicted peeling a banana and eyeing it suggestively. Slim, of course, calls him a "fag".
• AM/FM Characterization: Moby's associated with techno (despite himself not making it at that point). Eminem claimed in interviews around this time that he had always hated techno music and that now that he'd quit doing ecstasy, he hated it even more.
• Bald Mystic: In Eminem's caricature, his baldness gives him a monk-like aspect, fitting his meditation.
• But I Digress: While on stage accepting his Best Male Video award for "Without Me", Eminem interrupted his list of people to thank to start threatening to assault Moby.
• Conflict Ball: Moby's accusations of Eminem being a bigot were idiotic, but it is notable that Eminem had no reason to react as intensely as he did, and even admitted in interviews that he was doing it because he thought it would be funny. The music press had some negative reactions to this, viewing it as Eminem manufacturing beef as a hollow retread of the pop star invective that had got such a big reaction on his last album; the pointlessness of the beef also led to backlash from his own fans for being too mean for no reason.
• Cooperation Gambit: Despite Moby's genuine dislike of Eminem's personality and what he imagined to be his social politics, Moby promoted and endorsed Eminem's Encore Political Rap single "Mosh", calling it an incredible song and video. Since the video was a call for his fans to vote out George W. Bush, he was willing to set his grudge aside to fight a greater enemy.
• Flipping the Bird: In "Don't Front", Slim describes himself as having a middle finger shoved against Moby's nose.
• Gay Bravado: In response to Moby's taunt about being secretly in love with him, Slim in "Without Me" calls him a "fag — blow me!".
• Granola Guy: Moby's vegetarianism, pacifism, interest in spirituality and overall harmlessness was why Eminem selected him for the beef — he was trying to tone down the shock value of his act at the time and thought it would provide amusement. He's portrayed in Eminem's work as a yoga fanatic and wimpy vegetarian.
• Insult Friendly Fire: In "Without Me", Eminem sneers at the "36-year-old" (in reality, 34-year-old) Moby as being past it, despite the fact that Eminem himself was almost thirty at the time he released the song, and absolutely terrified of ageing out of stardom. Eminem's feelings about his precarious relevance — as revealed in "Lose Yourself" at around the same time — suggests that the irony here was intentional. (Eminem himself would end up having a second imperial phase at age 37.)
• Levitating Lotus Position: In the Anger Management Tour, Moby has the ability to fly from his meditation.
• Loony Fan: Downplayed — in the video edit of "Without Me" and Clean live performances, Eminem calls Moby a "36-year-old bald-headed Stan" instead. Moby in reality was and still is complimentary of Eminem's rapping talent, and as late as 2019 was writing in his autobiography about how much he related to Eminem as a fellow muso, producer and geek and wished they could be friends.
• Lost in Character: Despite starting the beef as a semi-joke, Eminem — at that time still struggling to extricate himself from Slim Shady — ended up sincerely loathing him to an extent that he was paranoid about Moby's violent retaliation, as if in an actual rap beef. This paranoia unintentionally led to Eminem's mortifying beef with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
• Rabble Rouser: Eminem's beef against Moby led to a small gang of his fans assaulting him and spraying him with mace.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: In the Anger Management tour skit, upon getting shot while flying above the stage, Moby lets out a comically girlish scream.
• Sissy Villain / Bad Impressionists: In his Anger Management Tour skit, Eminem gave him a weedy, effeminate lisp (and had him say "I am Moby" a lot).
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: It's implied Moby's smug hippie vegetarianism, pacifism and feminism is why Eminem singled him out, more than the actual stuff he said about Em.
• Small Role, Big Impact: 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.
• Straw Feminist: In the Anger Management Tour skit, Moby flies around Eminem's head accusing him of being a misogynist so that Obie Trice can shoot him.
• Straw Vegetarian: He diets on bananas because they're phallic and is depicted as physically weak and unmanly. In "My Name", Eminem claims the day he lets Canibus get one over on him is the day Moby is able to beat him in a fight.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Obie Trice uses wrestling moves on Moby in both the "Without Me" video and the Anger Management Tour skit.
• You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: Upon getting heckled while accepting his Moonman for Best Male Video, Eminem pointed at Moby and announced from the podium that he would hit a guy with glasses.

Christopher "Reeves"

You're taking this shit too far. Who do you think you are? Hang my suit up in the armoire. Every day I hate you more and more.

Christopher Reeve was an actor and disability rights campaigner best known for playing 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, which in turn made him an irresistible victim for Shady's pointless spite.

The Running Gag of Slim's beef with Reeve 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 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.

"Reeves" makes appearances on "Get You Mad", "Who Knew", "I'm Back", "Purple Pills", "My 1st Single", "Rain Man", "Medicine Ball", "Underground", "On Fire", "Campaign Speech", and basically every single Relapse Shady freestyle.

Tropes associated with Mr. Christopher Reeves:

• Antagonist in Mourning: In both "Rain Man" and "My 1st Single" on Encore, Slim expresses grief and shame about the death of his favourite punchbag, Christopher Reeve, sadly pouring one out for him after making fun of him in his songs. The ghost of Reeve warns him that when Slim dies, he'll kick his ass.
• An Arm and a Leg: Slim steals Reeve's legs in "I'm Back" and is exasperated that people are mad at him for it.
• Bad Impressionists: Eminem, a Man of a Thousand Voices whose vocal range is one of his strongest attributes as a performer, could easily have done a realistic impersonation of Christopher Reeve if he'd wanted to. Instead he gives him a Machine Monotone that serves to indicate his total lack of research - and therefore the fact that it's not really personal.
• Blaming the Victim: Apparently Slim's treatment of Reeve is the fault of Reeve, for having a name that rhymes with so many things.
• The Chew Toy: Not even death can spare Christopher Reeves from Slim's harassment and slander.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computerinvoked: In-universe. Slim does not even know basic facts about the guy, including the precise nature of his disability (he's claimed he's a double amputee with wooden legs, or is dependent on a computer to talk), keeps getting his name wrong, and conflates him with the actual Superman. In his 2009 Rap City freestyle, he puts out an apology for dissing him after his death, claiming he did not even know he died.
• Dance Battler: In "Medicine Ball", Reeve, sick of Eminem's shit, challenges him to a breakdancing contest.
• I'm Your Biggest Fan: In "My 1st Single", Slim claims he picked on "Reeves" because he was his biggest fan, which leads to Reeve calling him "fucker" and threatening to kick his ass.
• Malicious Misnaming: Slim exclusively refers to him as "Christopher Reeves", apparently not caring enough about the real man to know what his name actually is.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: In a Shade45 interview to promote Relapse, Eminem claimed his willingness to insult Christopher Reeve on the album five years after his death was because "I don't want to discriminate".
• One-Scene Wonderinvoked: In his 2009 Rap City Freestyle, Slim claims that Reeve renegaded him with his verse on "Medicine Ball".
• Quicksand Sucks: In "Medicine Ball", Slim puts Christopher on a unicycle, rolls him into a patch of quicksand, and then offers him a branch to grab onto with both hands.
• Rage Against the Author: Befitting a superhero known for his great compassion and insight, Reeve is Eminem's only character who, instead of getting sidetracked tussling with the sock puppet that is Slim, launches his attacks on Eminem for writing and performing this garbage. A lot of sequences with Reeve therefore end up with Eminem dropping character to explain himself or panic about the audience reaction.
• Robo Speak: Reinforcing Slim's total lack of interest in who he actually is, Reeve is impersonated as having a robotic voice (in every appearance after "I'm Back", anyway).
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Christopher Reeve's actual personality in Em's songs is that of the legend, icon and paragon he is, but Eminem's Jerkass behaviour (dissing him for laughs while hiding behind an alter-ego to do it) makes him want to throw hands.
• Tough Act to Followinvoked: It's heavily implied, especially once Slim takes on his Smug Super imagery after The Eminem Show, that Slim's problem with him is because he aspires to be Superman on some idealistic level, and knows he can never live up to Reeve, held to be the definitive article both onscreen and off. On "Medicine Ball", Reeve straight up informs him that he can never fill his shoes.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: 'Rain Man' putting a sticker of Christopher Reeve's Supes on his fridge next to Darth Vader was apparently responsible for his spinal injury and death.
• Wheelchair Antics: In the video for "Purple Pills", Slim dresses as a wheelchair-bound Superman-costumed Christopher who rolls up and punches Slim in the face for making jokes about him.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog

Psych! I joke! I joke! I kid! I kid! If I offend, I'm sorry! Please, please, forgive! For I am Triumph the Puppet Dog, I am a mere puppet! I can get away with anything I say and you will love it!

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is a cigar-chomping canine candid camera prankster, originating as a skit on Conan O'Brien's Late Night show. A 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 rapper friend/hypeman Proof taking his operator's script and throwing it at him. This made Eminem appear to be a fragile bully unable to take criticism even from a silly puppet — which, along with his unwarranted hostility to Moby at the same event, resulted in him getting booed when he went to get his award.

In the tradition of Battle Rapping, Triumph released a Diss Track, "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 2004 song "Ass Like That", a Self-Deprecation-filled apology in which Slim raps in-character as the dog, as well as its music video and a performance of the song at the 2004 VMAs.

A full apology for the Triumph incident is printed in Eminem's autobiography The Way I Am, and Eminem later shouts him out on "Leaving Heaven".

Tropes associated with Triumph:

• Character Development: Despite being a beef with a puppet, Triumph ended up being surprisingly significant on Eminem's future creative direction.
  • The initial incident was the first time his MTV crowd turned on him, setting him up for the fall from critical favourinvoked that would follow.
  • "Ass Like That" was Em's final single of the Encore cycle and his first single to show him apologising for and rejectinginvoked his Slim act, serving as a "last" hurrah for the persona and marking a push towards a more mature, Kinder and Cleaner persona — a development that would continue on later singles like "When I'm Gone", and eventually "Not Afraid".
  • The thickly-accented, celebrity-humping Triumph-Slim character of "Ass Like That" only needs a couple of handfuls of Valium and a splash of fake blood to become the erotomanic Serial Killer character Eminem would adopt on his 2009 album Relapse. "We Made You" in particular starts where "Ass Like That" left off.
• Decoy Getaway: Throughout "Ass Like That", Triumph-Slim uses his obvious puppetness to get away with serious sex crimes. Triumph ruefully tells him at the end of the video, "hey, Blondie, I saved your peroxide ass again."
• Dog Stereotype: "Ass Like That" puts a twist on the obligatory hip-hop booty jam by suggesting that Slim's obsession with asses is because he's a dog, trying to sniff them. The perverted content of the song also appears to be related to Triumph's doggish horniness — his brief mention in "Leaving Heaven" is in reference to his leg-humping.
• Evil Hand: In the music video for "Ass Like That", the puppet Triumph has a will of his own and is able to take over Slim. However, his evil behaviour is to keep him out of facing consequences for his evil actions.
• Fisticuff-Provoking Comment: The opening to the video of "Ass Like That" is a skit inspired by the 2002 incident in which Eminem violently assaults Triumph after making a string of jokes about him.
• The Grovel: Reviewers of Eminem's book The Way I Am noted that — despite all his bad behaviour over the years — the emotional high point is the detailed, thoughtful and compassionate apology for his assault of Triumph. In fact, the extent to which he goes out of his way to apologise for a ridiculous incident with a puppet and not for, say, the rampant Muse Abuse that ruined his personal life was seen by some as a further insult to those he harmed.
• Hypocritical Humor: Slim has absolutely no right to be offended by a ridiculous fictional character poking fun at him.
• Insult Comic: Triumph self-describes as this; it allows Slim to point out to the audience that this is what he is, too.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Triumph and Slim Shady exist primarily to lend credence to their creators' defense of their most controversial statements as jokes not meant to be taken seriously.
• Karma Houdini: In "Ass Like That", Triumph becomes a symbol of Slim's ability to slip out of consequences for his actions by using his persona as a "Just Joking" Justification.
• Karmic Transformation: In the music video for "Ass Like That", by humourlessly assaulting the dog puppet, Eminem gets it stuck on his own arm and fuses with him.
• Mirror Character: The whole point of "Ass Like That"'s song and video is that Slim and Triumph are the same — two ridiculous, fictional shock-comedians who use their obvious fictitiousness to get away with hurtful and inappropriate behaviour. More sinisterly, both are tame, mundane parts of the celebrity-industrial complex.
• Queer People Are Funny: Triumph starts the video for "Ass Like That" by hassling Eminem with a string of homophobic insults about Eminem having gay sex with Elton John and 50 Cent. Seeing as the two of them are very alike, it's a reference to Eminem's own history of making homophobic gags.
• Subverted Kids' Show: Another thing Slim and Triumph have in common; Slim has his colourful and child-friendly aesthetic, while Triumph is a foul-mouthed puppet filled with sexual perversion. "Ass Like That" brings in Crank Yankers characters as extras to reinforce this theme.
• Too Much Alike: Both Slim and Triumph are ridiculous, fake substitutes that allow their puppeteers to get away with bullying celebrities with inappropriate misogynistic and homophobic jokes; "Ass Like That" implies this is why Eminem reacted the way he did.
• Unexplained Accent: Triumph's Russian accent — which in Eminem's performance in "Ass Like That", keeps wandering off into Vienna and Mumbai — inspired Eminem to start experimenting with accents in his future work.
• Whole-Plot Reference: 2017's "Framed" is essentially a Darker and Edgier retread of "Ass Like That", this time with the Relapse Slim Shady in Triumph's role.