Behind a successful person lies a pack of haters.
Throughout his two-decade-spanning career, Eminem — real name Marshall Bruce Mathers III — has created loyal friends and militant foes. Our favorite vanilla rapper started making a name for himself in the rap game when he was only 14 and took Manix and M&M as his stage names. Thus, he developed into who we know today as 'Eminem.' His first-ever musical guru was his uncle, Ronnie Polkingharn, who introduced young Marshall to his first rap song, Reckless by Ice-T.
For someone who built his career surrounding the themes of hate, Eminem is no stranger to getting hate, but he also stands for what he believes, and that's why so many people adore him for that. Following the disappointing market performance of his 1996 debut album Infinite, Eminem developed a violent alter ego to terrorize America's parents with troubled youths: Slim Shady. Eminem introduced the persona in 1997 with Slim Shady EP, which eventually landed in Dr. Dre and Interscope CEO Jimmy Iovine's hands, and the rest is history.
Eminem has been in the game for over 20 years, so it's not surprising if he's made friends and enemies along the way. Here's what other celebrities have said about him, whether it's good or bad.
12 LL Cool J (Good)
Growing up, Eminem has always been an LL Cool J stan, and Rock the Bells rapper returned the love. When Eminem and Nick Cannon exchanged some not-so-nice words about each other with diss tracks and interviews back in 2019, LL let everybody knows whose side he's at. "Shout out to @Eminem for the love on Lord above!!!," he tweeted. "I got you homie!!! 💪🏾💯"
11 Suge Knight (Bad)
Former Death Row boss Suge Knight isn't entirely impressed with the rapper. Eminem is signed to Death Row's label rival, Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment, and that's how it all started. In fact, Suge has allegedly tried to kill Eminem twice on two separate occasions, as the Telegraph reported.
Still from the beef with Nick Cannon, the Wild n' Out host managed to get Suge on the line, who's an inmate at RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, to give an intro to The Invitation diss track against Em."Check this out, uh, Eminem, whatever your name is, right," The former honcho said, acting like he doesn't know Em. "This is your invitation to prove to everybody else what you're about. Winner takes all. Eminem's a b*tch."
10 Snoop Dogg (Good)
Snoop Dogg is that one cool uncle your mother doesn't want you to talk to. Back in 2000, he co-signed Eminem on The Marshall Mathers LP's B*tch Please II as his 'nephew' and 'The Great White American Hope.'
Over the decades, his admiration for Em has not entirely faded. Following Eminem's anti-Trump BET freestyle in 2017, The Doggfather called the vanilla rapper 'a n*gga' as a badge of honor for the rapper. "Yo, shout out to Eminem for saying some real sh*t," he took to Instagram. "Eminem, I always knew you was a real n*gga ... Detroit, stand up!"
9 Benzino (Bad)
Eminem's beef with The Source owner Raymond 'Benzino' Scott reached the boiling point when the magazine released two unreleased 'racist' tracks from Eminem's early youth where he said the n-word and painted black women as 'gold diggers' on Foolish Pride and So Many Styles.
Years later, nobody from both sides has raised the white flag. "He can put words together, and that's cool, but he's getting special treatment from MTV, radio, every publication, and everybody because they know the money comes from white kid rapping," Benzino told Choke No Joke. "Eminem could put words together, but hip-hop is more than rap. It's our culture. Nipsey Hussle is a modern now. Eminem is not a part of that loss. He raps, but he's not a part of our struggles and culture."
8 Machine Gun Kelly (Good)
Once upon a time, Machine Gun Kelly was an Eminem fan. Even though he called Em's then-16 year old Hailie hot, we all know how he ended the tweet with 'Em is king.' He even has a rendition of Eminem's Lose Yourself from Detroit's own St. Andrews Hall, and openly welcome Em to his Detroit shows.
"Eminem makes me want to quit rapping," the Ohio rapper tweeted on another occasion. "Fuck he's good lol."
7 Machine Gun Kelly (Bad)
We all know how this fan-becomes-hater story ended. After the tweet, Eminem reportedly banned MGK's songs from his Shade 45 radio station. MGK responded it with a freestyle at Power 106 Los Angeles station, "I'm my favorite rapper alive since my favorite rapper banned me from Shade 45," and a subtle shot on No Reason, "You just rap, you're not God." Eminem went on a diss-power mode on Kamikaze's Not Alike in 2018, where MGK jabbed back with Rap Devil.
6 Jay-Z (Good)
In 2001, the two titans of rap linked up together for one of the most iconic collaborations in hip-hop, Renegade. Years later, Jay-Z still admires Eminem's work ethic. "I think Eminem is a very intelligent rapper," Jigga said in an interview. "It's just when you make 4000 songs ... I'm a constant collaborator, you know, and some people gonna have better days. It's just the way it is. But if we count the amount as the competitor and if we count the amount of records that I've been on versus people who had better performances, then it's gonna be 400 to 3."
5 Nick Cannon (Bad)
The long-going feud started way back in 2009 when Eminem snapped on Relapse's Bagpipe from Baghdad and called Nick Cannon's then-wife Mariah Carey all derogatory names the rapper could ever think of. Almost a decade later, the Wild n' Out host still added fuel to the fire by trashing Eminem on several interviews, podcasts, and four back-to-back diss tracks: The Invitation, Pray for Him, The Invitation Canceled, and Used to Look Up to You.
4 Ariana Grande (Good)
Journalists and fans threw Eminem under the bus when he made the problematic line, "I'm contemplating yelling 'bombs away' on the game / like I'm outside of an Ariana Grande concert waiting" on Music to be Murdered By's Unaccomodating in early 2020. Many seemed to forget that he's helped raise over 2 million for the Manchester attack victims. In fact, Ariana Grande herself was a fan of the rapper. In a 2014 interview with TIME, she admitted that at one point in her life, she was obsessed with Eminem.
3 Justin Vernon (Bad)
In 2018, Eminem was, once again, in hot water after a homophobic slur aimed against Tyler, the Creator on Fall from Kamikaze album. The song's vocalist, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, took to Twitter to call him out. "Eminem is one of the best rappers of all time, there is no doubt. I have and will respect that. Tho, this is not the time to criticize Youth, it's the time to listen," he tweeted. "I was wrong, and we are gonna kill this track."
