In a lot of ways, Eminem has often come across as a very likable guy over the years. After all, the rapper has a long history of putting out amusing songs as singles and he typically adopted comedic personas in the accompanying music videos. Despite that, to say that Eminem has a long history of picking lyrical fights with his peers is a massive understatement.
When it comes to the rappers that Eminem has beefed with, some of the most notable people include the Insane Clown Posse, Tyler the Creator, Ja Rule, Joe Budden, and Will Smith. In addition to those stars, for years Eminem called out people like Fred Durst, Christina Aguilera, and Moby. Of course, every Eminem fan knows that he also has a long history of saying nasty things about his ex-wife and mother during his songs.
Given all of the people that Eminem has beefed with during his career, it makes sense that his feud with Machine Gun Kelly had little effect on his career. On the other end of the spectrum, Kelly has said that his beef with Eminem did serious damage to his career.
Beef Timeline
For some reason, in May 2012 Machine Gun Kelly decided to comment on a picture of Hailie Mathers that Eminem posted on Twitter. While that could have been innocent enough, it was pretty gross since Kelly was 22 at the time and he commented that Hailie was “hot as f**k” even though she was 16-years-old back then. Furthermore, considering Eminem’s long history of lyrically ripping apart his peers, it was baffling that Kelly would put himself in the crosshairs.
Soon after Machine Gun Kelly posted his Twitter comment about Eminem’s daughter, it became clear that it had sparked off a feud between the rappers. For example, Kelly would go on to indirectly claim that Eminem tried to have him blackballed because of it. Then in 2018, Eminem took things to a new level when he released the song "Not Alike" in which he dissed Machine Gun Kelly. From there, things were off to the races as Kelly responded with his song “Rap Devil” which was a play on Eminem’s earlier track “Rap God”.
During a 2018 interview with Sway, Eminem had this to say about Machine Gun Kelly. “I could give a f**k about your career. You think I actually f**kin’ think about you? Do you know how many f**kin’ rappers that are better than you? You’re not even in the conversation.” Shortly after, Eminem released a song called “Killshot” in which he mocked Kelly’s looks and his lack of commercial success. Unfortunately, for Kelly, “Killshot” was a massive hit that amassed 38.1 million views on YouTube in 24 hours. Two days after “Killshot” was released, Kelly called out Eminem during a concert but shortly thereafter he put an unofficial end to their beef by announcing he wasn’t going to respond to the song.
Claimed Consequences
Some of the time when two rappers put an end to their beef, both parties manage to come out the other side looking better. In the case of Machine Gun Kelly’s beef with Eminem, it doesn’t seem like that is the case at all. During a discussion with Interview Magazine, Kelly spoke about how his feud with Eminem had damaged his career in a big way.
While talking about his 2019 album “Hotel Diablo” Machine Gun Kelly made it clear he was proud of his efforts. "As a hip-hop album, ("Diablo" is) flawless front to back, and also a hint at the evolution of how I went into a pop-punk album.” However, he is aware that the album didn’t perform well and he blamed that on his beef with Eminem. “But it was coming off the tail-end of that infamous beef (with Eminem). So no one wanted to give it the time of day."
“It’s like if you make a shitty movie and then you come out with a great movie right after, but people want to focus on the fact that they hated whatever you just did. What I did in the beef was exactly what it should be, but that project wasn’t welcomed. The next album came from already feeling like I’d counted out, so I didn’t even care what the public was going to think. That’s why the project was ironically my best received one, because it was the most effortless, with the least outside influence.”
Even though Machine Gun Kelly’s 2020 album “Tickets to My Downfall” has ultimately been well-received, that wasn’t always the case. Instead, when Kelly teased the release of new music before its release, he initially was actively mocked online. From the outside looking in, it seems pretty clear that the reason for that initial response was that some people still didn’t like Kelly due to his Eminem feud.