A short comment on MTV sparked rumours of a feud, but Nelly says it was all a misunderstanding that he and Eminem cleared up years ago.
For years, rumours swirled about a supposed feud between Nelly and Eminem, stemming from an early 2000s interview where Nelly quipped, “I don’t play with candy, I eat M&Ms”. However, in a recent interview with Bootleg Kev, the St. Louis rapper clarified that there was never any real beef — just a misunderstanding.
Nelly explained that when he started blowing up, he mistakenly believed Eminem had been throwing shots at him. In response, he made the comment on MTV’s TRL, but later realised there was no bad blood:
Miscommunication. I misinterpreted something when I was really new, and I wanted to apologise to him. I misinterpreted that he had something to say about what we were doing. When I went on MTV, I made some comments because, you know, I’m still fresh from Louis. But that wasn’t the case. Em is the GOAT. He’s so dope.
The two eventually crossed paths in Detroit, where Eminem approached him at an afterparty. Nelly recalled:
Somebody came and was like, “Yo, Em wants to come through and holler”. I’m like, “Okay.” Then he came in, and he’s such a dope cat. He had Hailie with him, she was young. And he was like, “Yo, man, my daughter”. I felt like a dick. Because we were Eminem fans!
Looking back, Nelly is glad they cleared the air:
I’m glad we got that out of the way. It’s fucked up when [it’s like that with] people that you fuck with and that you admire. Yo, dude spits! I’m glad we squashed that.
While the brief moment of tension never turned into an actual rivalry, their careers remained intertwined. In 2002, Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” blocked “Without Me” from reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Still, Eminem did not hold it against Nelly and gave him a couple of shout-outs in his songs, such as “The Conspiracy” freestyle and “No Apologies”.
Eventually, Nelly and Eminem’s camp collaborated, with D12 appearing on the soundtrack for Adam Sandler’s remake of a classic football movie “The Longest Yard”.
With time, it is clear that any past misunderstanding has long been put to rest.
