The Entire Eminem and Mariah Carey Feud Was So Much Messier Than We Remember

2001

It all started back in 2001. The two were at the top of their game, especially Eminem who had just done his iconic performance with Elton John that year. So of course Mariah reached out to the young rapper to see if he wanted to help out on her Charmbracelet album. According to Em, the two dated for several months, but according to Mariah, it was purely a professional relationship.

2002

Because he’s Eminem, he started mentioning Mariah and their relationship in his music. The first reference began back in 2002 when he mentioned her twice by name on The Eminem Show. On “Superman,” he rapped, “What you trying be? My new wife? / What, you Mariah? Fly through twice.” On “When the Music Stop,” he said, “What the f–k you take me for, a joke? You smoking crack? ‘Fore I do that, I’d beg Mariah to take me back.”

After the album dropped, the whole world was like, “Whoa, they dated?” Eminem later confirmed it to Rolling Stone, saying, “There’s truth to that. But on the whole personal level, I’m not really feeling it. I just don’t like her as a person.”

2002

Mariah seemingly sank to his level on Charmbracelet as many fans thought the song “Clown” was a jab at the rapper. “You should’ve never intimated we were lovers,” she sang, “when you know very well we never even touched each other.”

She even addressed the rumors that she flew her plane to see him. “I gotta break it to ya delicately, dummy. Takin’ my G5 twenty minutes wasn’t nothin’, but I guess you wouldn’t know. That’s the way I roll.” She later called him a puppet and a clown but was wise to never call him out by name.

2002

Mariah also went on a denial tour. Similar to how she shaded Jennifer Lopez when she uttered the iconic phrase, “I don’t know her,” the pop diva denied she and Eminem were ever a thing in several interviews. “I talked to him, I spoke to him a few times, whatever,” she said at the time. “But in terms of me having an intimate relationship? With men, I can name them all on one hand, and he’s not one of them.” That’s cold, Mariah. And she wasn’t finished! She later told Larry King, “I hung out with him, I spoke to him on the phone. I think I was probably with him a total of four times. And I don’t consider that dating somebody.”

2003

If Mariah wanted to portray herself as “the bigger person” in the whole feud, she definitely didn’t help the situation when she parodied Eminem during a performance of “Clown” where she had a dancer sport a blonde wig and a Detroit jersey.

2005

Eminem kicked things up a notch by straight-up playing her intimate voicemails in the middle of his concerts. The messages allegedly included Mariah saying, “Why won’t you see me? Why won’t you call me?” Mariah’s reps denied the person on the tapes was her.

2006

Eminem continued talking about Mariah for, like, three more years. You’d think after the immature tour showdown that these two grown adults would grow up, but Eminem didn’t. In 2006, the rapper mentioned Mariah yet again in “Jimmy Crack Corn.” He rapped, “Your mind’s on us like mine’s on Mariah. And y’all are just like her, you’re all f–king liars.” Later that year, he went on Shade 45 radio to blast the pop singer again. “Yes, me and Mariah did have a relationship for about a good six, seven months. It didn’t work. I wasn’t really into what she was into; our personalities collided,” he said. “She’s a diva, and I’m a little more regular, I guess.”

2009

However, he took it especially far in 2009 when he released “Bagpipes From Baghdad,” an entire track that just took a collective dump on both Mariah and her then-husband, Nick Cannon. The song started off kind of whiny (“Mariah, whatever happened to us? Why did we have to break up?”) and then got straight vicious (“Nick Cannon, you pr–k, I wish you luck with the f–kin’ whore.”). Ouch.

2009

Like any loving husband, Nick was none too pleased at his wife getting mocked by her ~alleged~ ex in a diss track. He responded in a now-deleted blog post where he accused Eminem of being racist and disrespectful to his wife. “I thought we got past the days where white men could spew vulgar obscenities at our beautiful queens and get away with it,” he wrote. “So, Miss Marshall, I’m going to make you wish you never spoke my name and regret the ungodly things you said about my wife.”

2009

But probably the largest (and most well-known) diss came when Mariah dropped the track “Obsessed” about, you know, some dude who was clearly infatuated with her. She never said who it was about, but it was pretty obvious once the video dropped.

2009

Needless to say, Eminem was furious. He unleashed “The Warning,” and that was pretty much like the atomic bomb of diss tracks. In the song, he claimed that he and Mariah dated for over six months, only had sex once, that Mariah often flew to his house, that she was an alleged alcoholic and that he once prematurely ejaculated on her stomach. He then threatened her and called her every vile sexist word in his handbook. “Bitch, shut the f–k up ‘fore I put all them phone calls out you made to my house when you was Wild ‘n Out before Nick / When you was on my d–k and give you something to smile about.” Read the lyrics for yourself to see how brutal it is.

2009

After the apocalyptic shock of “The Warning,” Nick responded with a series of cryptic tweets that included new age-y quotes, proverbs and even Bible verses. “Quote of the day: ‘Never argue with fools because from a distance people can’t tell who is who,'” he tweeted.

2009

Rappers Ja Rule and Busta Rhymes also defended Mariah. “Leave Mariah Carey alone. That’s my friend, man,” Busta told Rap-Up.com in 2009. “I don’t even understand why this s–t is resurfacing again. But for whatever it’s worth, I just hope they could be cool.” Ja Rule also weighed in, saying “diss tracks” shouldn’t exist to begin with. “It all stemmed from an Eminem comment,” he told SOHH. “With him saying he peed on her or some s–t like that, I don’t, you know, come on. Real talk, there really shouldn’t be any [diss] records being made. … I don’t have to insult a woman.”

2010

In 2010, the rapper finally decided to bury the ax and said he was done with the rivalry. “I really don’t want to talk about her anymore,” he told Vibe magazine. “I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse. I’m not even going to comment about it. I’m done with that whole situation. I said what I had to say. I’m done.”

A year prior (before “Obsessed”), Em even admitted to feeling, dare we say, apologetic for “Bagpipes From Baghdad.” He said, “There’s a line on there that was a little harsh, you know, it’s a harsh line, it was pretty intense on the swag level but you know, man, the way I look at it, I said it, I had no idea [Nick] was going to take it like he took it.”

2016

You’d think the feud was over, but not for Nick. After his 2016 divorce from Mariah, he got really chatty about the whole thing. “The way the Eminem thing started was that I never had an issue with him,” he said. “If anything, I’ve been one of his biggest fans, but when another man crosses a line of disrespect, then you got to deal with it.” He then challenged Em to a rap battle but later tried to bury the hatchet in a track where he brought the whole thing up again.

“Haters on my comments say Eminem the greatest / s–t I agree / Where he at though?” he rapped. “I’m a fan, yo / but first and foremost / I’m a man, though. That 2010 bulls–t, been let that go. … Em, right now I can really relate to him / drug habits all the pain he was in / saying foul s–t when you don’t know where your baby momma been.”

2019

In September of 2019, Nick discussed his drama with the “Kim” rapper on T.I. Harris’ “ExpediTlously” podcast. The TV personality said his frenemy apologized to him, and, in return, Nick invited him to “have some fun with it now.” Although Nick doesn’t want to fight anymore, he continued to state, “He still in my top five, but I feel like anytime somebody says something … you’ve just gotta be held accountable. If you say something, we gonna have to have this conversation like men. That’s all I wanted.”

2019

Ten years later after the initial feud, Eminem stirred the pot once again. On December 6, 2019, Fat Joe released a new song “Lord Above” featuring the controversial rapper. During his segment of the song, the star raps about Nick being “neutered” by Mariah and calls her a “nut job.”

“I know me and Mariah didn’t end on a high note / But that other dude’s whipped — that p—y got him neutered,” read the lyrics. “Tried to tell him this chick’s a nut job before he got his jewels clipped / Almost got my caboose kicked / Fool, quit / You not gonna do s–t / I let her chop my balls off too before I lose to you, Nick.”

2019

Soon after the song’s release, Nick responded on Instagram — first to congratulate Fat Joe on his new song and later taking a jab at Slim Shady. “@FatJoe album is [fire],” he captioned a photo of the album cover on December 7. “Star-studded. He even did some charity work and dug @Eminem out his grave — I mean cave!! LOL, FLAM FLAM! BLAM BLAM! NICK CANNON!! Bring your ass to @MTVWILDNOUT to Battle like a real legend, Grandpa Marshall!!” The star even went as far as to put a grandpa emoji on the “Not Afraid” singer’s face. Shots fired.

2019

Nick continued to address the feud on his Power 106 radio show. “We should change his name from Eminem to Percocet,” he said on air, making a dig at his age. “What’s the pill old people use? We are going to call him Cialis. Bring your walker, get out your wheelchair, Eminem, and pop whatever you want to pop.”

2020

Mariah seemed to step back into the ring when she revealed she completed her memoir in July 2020, leaving Eminem very nervous for what was to come. “Eminem’s Achilles heel has always been Mariah Carey. They had a very toxic relationship,” an insider told Us Weekly on July 22. “He knows that Mariah is going to say very negative things about him. He is expecting the onslaught and almost welcomes it.” While the rapper is always down for controversy, he was worried she would reveal some intimate details about their love life. “Marshall is stressed out that Mariah is going to say s–t that he was bad in bed or a selfish lover because he has always been very insecure about that,” the insider said. “She knows that.”

2020

As it turns out, Eminem didn’t have a reason to be stressed about what the singer would write in The Meaning of Mariah Carey. During an interview with Variety that dropped August 31, she hinted she didn’t write about him at all. When asked if the rapper had cause for concern when it came to the memoir, she simply said, “There [are] some songs that I can sing in response to that, but I will not do it. … If somebody or something didn’t pertain to the actual meaning of Mariah Carey, as is the title, then they aren’t in the book.”

2021

“Obsessed” was released on June 16, 2009, and in honor of the milestone moment, Mariah used the song as backing for her entry into the popular “Wipe It Down” TikTok challenge.

In the video, Mariah goes from dressed down to glammed up with a seamless transition. Not to mention, there’s another cameo: The “Slim Shady” rapper himself. (Well, Mariah recreated her version of an Eminem-like personality from the 2009 video, that is).

“Just for laughs,” she captioned the June 16 Instagram post. “From last year’s lockdown when all I did was wipe tings [sic] down. #HappyAnniversaryObsessed.”