Perhaps one of the most surprising feuds in show business: Eminem vs. Moby. The two artists don't exactly seem like the kind of people who would become enemies. Granted, they don't look like best friends either, but it doesn't seem like they would have enough of a relationship to hate each other.
Nonetheless, it did happen. In the early 2000s, after Moby made some comments about the rapper's music, things between them got bad pretty quickly. Here's a recap of what happened.
What Happened Between Eminem And Moby?
Of course, people are wondering why Eminem ended up having a feud with Moby, of all people in the entertainment industry. After all, the two of them aren't the kind of musicians that fans or the media would pit against each other.
They play different genres and have totally different styles in just about everything one can imagine. But they did have a feud, and a pretty intense one too. It all started over two decades ago, at the 2001 Grammy Awards.
As many of our readers will know, Eminem was known for writing some pretty controversial lyrics, and they didn't always have good reception, sometimes with good reason.
Moby, in particular, did not like a lot of what Eminem wrote at the time. Understandable, because even though the rapper surely didn't mean it literally, some of his lyrics were very offensive to minorities. So, at the Grammys, Moby decided to speak his mind.
He said about Eminem: "He's very good at what he does, and he's very clever, but he's also a homophobe, a racist and a misogynist, and I find that objectionable."
Needless to say, the rapper was not happy about that, and it sparked a feud between the two of them that lasted for some time.
Eminem Dissed Moby In A Song
Eminem didn't let go of what Moby said quickly. On the contrary, he retaliated more than once, and even immortalized their feud in one of his most popular songs, the hit "Without Me."
There, he attacks Moby by name and even depicts him in the video. And he also mentions Chris Kirkpatrick from NSYNC, but that's another story.
The lyrics of the song called Moby a slur, said he was old (and bald, which is accurate), suggested no one listened to Moby's music, and made a distasteful comment about what Moby could do for Eminem.
Truthfully, this did little to beat Moby's accusation of homophobia, but it made an impact for sure. If the goal was to make Moby mad, though, he failed spectacularly, because the musician found it funny, and responded to the diss by killing him with kindness.
After the song came out, he said "I think apart from his misogyny and homophobia he’s an amazingly talented rapper. And it’s amazing to me that he’s had such a long and successful career. So kudos to him."
About being mentioned in it by name, he mentioned "My favorite Eminem song is 'Mosh'. And 'Without Me', because he gave me some amazing free publicity."
Eminem Threatened Moby At The VMAs
Apparently, going after each other at award shows became their favorite thing to do during the feud. It all started with Moby's comments during the Grammys, and it was at the Video Music Awards in 2002 that Eminem decided to return the favor.
After being presented with an award by Christina Aguilera, the rapper went on a tirade against Moby, which unsurprisingly got booed. At that, he responded with "Keep booing, little girl. I will hit a man with glasses."
He also almost hit Robert Smigel's Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a puppet dog that was making an appearance at the event. Looking back on it, Eminem knows he was out of line and explains he was not going through a good time in his life and his whole attitude was disproportionate.
Moby Wasn't Bothered By The Threats
Things didn't escalate much after Eminem's threat, in part because Moby wasn't too upset about it. He wasn't frightened or enraged, at least not for his own safety.
"I was more concerned for Triumph’s well-being," he admitted. "If Eminem wants to pick on someone, fine, pick on me, but don’t diss the dog-puppet. Triumph the dog-puppet is my hero. That’s the sole reason that I went to the VMAs. ‘Cos I love that little dog-puppet."
He got slightly more concerned when Eminem repeated the threat. "The truth is that I honestly, in all sincerity, thought that the whole Eminem thing was done in some semblance of humor until Eminem called me a p—y (that was off camera) and then threatened to beat me up. Ah well."
Of course, a lot has changed since then, and Eminem deeply regrets his behavior.
"All my life I'd been trained to react... My instinct was, if someone talks about you, you see them, you fight," he explained. "But MOBY? Really? I was going to fight MOBY? And I was going to fight a puppet? In hindsight, I should have handled it differently."
