KILL YOU

An Interview
INTERVIEWER: Also you're not a fan of gay people, I gather. Is that a problem you have in your life?

EMINEM: Now, this is what it all started from. I'm a battle MC, I've been a battle MC for [as long as] I can remember. That's how I came up. And the most lowest degrading thing that you can say to a man when you're battling him is call him a faggot and try to take away his manhood. Call him a sissy, call him a punk.
"Faggot" to me doesn't necessarily mean gay people. "Faggot" to me just means... taking away your manhood. You're a sissy. You're a coward. Just like you might sit around in your living room and say, "Dude, stop, you're being a fag, dude." This does not necessarily mean you're being a gay person. It just means you're being a fag. You're being an a**hole or whatever. That's the way that the word was always taught to me. That's how I learned the word. Battling with somebody, you do anything you can to strip their manhood away. So, when I started saying "faggot" on record, I started getting people going, "You have something against gay people," and I thought it was funny. Because I don't.

INTERVIEWER: But do you understand how gay people might feel like you're taking shots at them?

Eminem: Yeah. But I also go on to say, "Relax, guy, I like gay men." So it's kind of like leaving it up in the air. Do I really hate gay people, or do I not? It's up to you to decide.

INTERVIEWER: It seemed to me that this album is like, in a way, Richard Pryor and old Redd Foxx records. Screamingly funny, and yet saying stuff you don't usually laugh at.

Eminem: Right. I say things that people might laugh at and then go, "I can't believe I just laughed at that. I'm sicker than he is!" But you were laughing at it. Sometimes I sit down and I write, and I laugh at myself. If I'm in a room by myself and I'm just writing, I'll laugh.

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything you couldn't make a joke about? Even, like, Columbine references.

Eminem: No. If I feel strong enough about it or I'm thinking it, I'm going to say it. I don't feel like I should have to bite my tongue for anybody. I believe an artist should be an artist and be able to say whatever he wants to say, whether you think it's good or bad. There's good and bad out there, but who are you to judge what's good or what's bad? Even if the person believes in the most wrongest sh**, they've got a right to voice their opinion.

INTERVIEWER: Are you worried about encountering face-to-face Will Smith, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and 'NSYNC?

Eminem: No. I'm actually looking forward to it. I don't know if anything is going to happen. First of all, I used to respect Will Smith. [Now] he's dissed the whole genre of rap. He dissed gangsta rap music. And that is one of the most influential musics out there. I respect him for saying his opinion, but not everybody is as happy as Will Smith. Not everybody sees life as happy and as positive as he sees it. So if he wants to rap about birds and bees and flowers, then let him rap about birds and bees and flowers, but don't dis nobody else, dude. "Nobody should cuss. If I don't cuss, nobody should cuss." I felt like he was taking a stab at me and [Dr.] Dre and anybody who uses profanity on the records to express themselves. If you feel strong enough about something, then you might put a little "f***" before you say exactly what you're saying. "This f***ing tree," if you feel that. It just depends on how you feel about something. But I do not believe that he doesn't get home around his family and use no profanity. I don't believe that nobody cannot swear.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about poor, little Christina Aguilera. I mean, this oral sex reference.

Eminem: I met her before, and I had respect for her too.

INTERVIEWER: What happened? Where did it go wrong?

Eminem: Actually it was when she had her little "What A Girl Wants" special [on MTV] and it aired... people were telling me about it, like, "Yo, she put you on blast. She was picking your video apart," and this and that. So I was like, "No," you know? I was like...

INTERVIEWER: "Not Christina."

Eminem: I thought she liked me, or whatever. Yeah. So I'm watching her little special, and I'm watching her with her little friends, and she's giggling, and she picked one of my videos for one of her favorite videos or something. And I was like, "That's cool that she picked my video." And then after it came off, [she brought up] my marriage. I wasn't trying to make that as public as I could make it. That was my personal business. It's like, as far as my personal business, I tell people what I want them to know.

She heard a rumor that I was married and then said, "Yeah, he's cute, but isn't he married, though?" And I was like, "No, you didn't just say that. You little bitch." And then she said, "Yeah, and, and, you know, doesn't he have a song about killing his baby's mother? And I always tell my friends if you're against domestic, you know, I'm so against domestic violence, and if you're in an abusive relationship..." I was like, Why does she just pick my video if she's picking it apart? I would rather have had her say nothing about me.
So, you know, she heard a rumor. She didn't know if I was married or not. She just heard a rumor and then put me on blast in front of a nation of people that might not have known that, and I might not have cared for them to know that. But I figured, "Well, f*** it. All right. Okay. I'm married. Okay. Whatever. That's cool. But you said something about me, so I'm going to voice some rumors that I heard about you."

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And who knows, really.

Eminem: Exactly. It's not even my business. Me being married wasn't her business neither.

INTERVIEWER: How's married life treating you? Is it good? Is it working out?

Eminem: It's cool. I'm trying to make it work. I'm doing the best I can, I guess. I just don't want to be like my father was.

INTERVIEWER: Which we are often.

Eminem: I don't want to be. I want to be there every step of the way for my daughter. I want to be there for Hailie's first day in school, when she starts school. I want to be there for everything that my father missed out on.

INTERVIEWER: Does Hailie know who Eminem is? Does she realize there is this Slim Shady, and all this other stuff?

Eminem: Yeah. She is four years old now. She's starting to learn. She's really smart. Like, if we're going to go to the grocery store or something, she'll say, "Daddy, you've got to put your hat on, because otherwise you're going to have to sign autographs." I think she's just now understanding the whole concept. I don't think she knew what it meant last year. She could've thought it was a home video playing on the VCR. But now she likes Britney Spears, she likes Christina Aguilera, and when she sees those people on TV and then me on TV right with them, I think she's getting the concept a little bit.

INTERVIEWER: Maybe Britney will drop by some day. Well, you're going to have to explain this sort of thing to [Hailie] later on down the line, do you think? Or are you concerned about it?

Eminem: Yeah. Of course, I'm going to have to explain certain things to her. But at least I'm going to be there to explain them things and, at least, be there to guide her and to teach her. She knows right from wrong. She listens to my music. She hears my music and hears the cuss words and this and that. I don't think she totally understands what my music means or anything like that, or that it's even offensive or wrong or anything. But she hears the cuss words. She knows not to repeat them. Me and Kim are teaching her the things that we were never taught, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: What's it going to be like, putting singles out from this record? Because so much stuff is going to be taken out of the tracks, right? You'll have to go back in the studio and just do surgery on the lyrics to get them on the radio.

Eminem: If they're going to be played on MTV and we're going to make a video for any song, it's got to go through what "My Name Is" and "Guilty Conscience" went through, with the whole cleanup process. I hate to do it, because I feel like it's taking away from the whole impact of what I want to say. But [when] I manage to come up with the cleanup lyrics, it's kind of like a smart-assed way of doing it. I make them so ridiculous. I try to still make them funny, but since I'm going to change it up, I'm going to clean it up. It's already going to be corny, so I'm just going to make it completely corny.

INTERVIEWER: But I thought it was a great thing about the record: it's not like this other pop music around that you can't get away from, in elevators and stuff. You're going to have to seek this out. You're not going to hear it on the radio full force. You'll have to go buy the album. My favorite [line] is the one where you say, "If you believe that I actually write songs about people and then go out and kill people, I'm going to kill you." That's the best line on the album, I think.

Eminem: Because that's basically saying, "You're stupid. You're believing everything that I say."

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. When people hear "The Real Slim Shady," just the track, they're going to think, "Well, this is kind of a cute, kind of poppy album." And yet, when you listen to the album, it's really intensely not poppy and cute. Was that a conscious decision? You know, "I've got to get away from this 'cute blond guy' thing?"

Eminem: Yeah. It kind of is. Because a lot of times I get grouped up with the whole "TRL" crowd. The Backstreet [Boys] and Britney Spears, and I have to separate myself from that crowd, because I'm not pop. No matter how many albums I sell, I feel like my music is underground. It's still underground. I came up through the underground. That's how I got my respect.

INTERVIEWER: Do you find yourself being mobbed by beautiful women these days?

Eminem: I find myself being mobbed by a lot of teenage girls, which is really surprising to me.

INTERVIEWER: Why so?

Eminem: Because of all the things that I say about women.

INTERVIEWER: [Laughs] True.

Eminem: It's a sick thing with girls. It's like, the more you dis them, the more they want you. If you act like you care about them, they don't want you. And if you act like you don't give a sh** about them -- take my relationship, for example -- when you act like you don't give a sh** about them, then they love you. I never understood that.

INTERVIEWER: Hmm. That is odd. Now, when people say, "This guy belongs in therapy," do you think maybe you have problems that you're working on yourself? You're trying to be a better person and get rid of whatever demons might be inside?

Eminem: Yeah, I think I do. I think for a long time, I went through a lot of personal problems that I don't really care to get into right now, but that I've dealt with all of my life. Last year with the whole fame thing, and me going through my whole drug phase and whatnot, and things hitting me kind of fast... I'm really trying to slow down. And I'm trying to... I forgot what the hell I was saying. I lost my f***ing memory.

INTERVIEWER: Are you working on any personal problems? You're trying to be a better person. You're trying to evolve and not mellow out.

Eminem: Yeah. I'm trying to... not tone it down. Just trying to relax a little more and take things as they come, and just relax. I don't know if anybody notices it now, at present, but last year, almost every interview I did, I was spitting phlegm. I was so aggravated and so hyper and everything. I've really learned to calm down, and assess the situation and realize that this is what I'm doing, and this is my job. If I let fame get the best of me, I'm going to self-destruct. And I don't want to self-destruct.

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