Do we like Eminem?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent, with real stains: slurs and a Rihanna lyric he later apologised for, plus one awkward collaboration, against years of speaking up and giving back to Detroit.
The harm test is where he gets his asterisk. For years his lyrics used homophobic slurs. Elton John, who shared a stage with him, has said Eminem was never homophobic and that he was writing about the way things are. Plenty of LGBTQ+ critics weren't convinced, and the answer depends on whether you read the slurs as character work or as the real thing.
In 2018 he used a slur on Tyler, the Creator, then told Sway Calloway he had gone too far. He said that in his quest to hurt Tyler he had been hurting a lot of other people. That is a fair bit better than most blokes manage, though it came after the song was released.
Then there was the leaked lyric. In 2019 verses leaked that sided with Chris Brown over Rihanna in their dispute. In December 2020 Eminem addressed it on the track Zeus, apologising to Rihanna and saying it was wrong. It is a real stain, but it was owned.
The fresh mess is Kid Rock. The Daily Beast called him a prominent MAGA supporter and reported fans calling Eminem spineless for appearing on 7 Sins. Rock moved Eminem to another track, Heal My Faith, and told The Detroit News that Eminem suggested the swap. Eminem hasn't said anything publicly that we found. Rock wrote that the pair have “stayed friends through it all”. One song on a friend's album is a project, not a pattern.
The good stuff is real. Eminem and Twitter's Jack Dorsey put a combined $1 million toward Detroit in 2020. In 2025 he and manager Paul Rosenberg became executive producers of the Lions' Thanksgiving halftime show, running through 2027. We found no mistreatment of co-stars or staff, and nothing recent that changes the picture.