Michael Jackson once exacted some seriously precise revenge on Eminem after being dissed in one of his tracks.
OK, so revenge might not be exactly the reason behind what happened - in truth it almost certainly isn't - but the pair definitely did have a falling out after Michael was mentioned in one of Em’s songs, which Jackson addressed in a few interviews.
Jackson wasn’t known for his ability to verbally spar with people, nor was he particularly renowned for his ability to hold an argument.
However, Marshall Mathers is definitely in the opposite category, he loves a bit of a beef.
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Over the years, he’s aimed lyrical jibes at members of his own family, Elton John – who he subsequently made up with – and Machine Gun Kelly, to name but a few.
In 2004, he came for the King of Pop, who had a pretty interesting method of retaliation.
Em’s song ‘Just Lose It’ seems to have been the catalyst, as the Detroit rapper took aim at MJ.
In response, Michael called the lyrics ‘disrespectful’, but didn’t release a track of his own or anything like that.
Instead, he became the owner of all of Eminem’s back catalogue in 2007, when his company Sony/ATV purchased the company that owned all of Slim Shady’s music.
He paid $370 million for the privilege, so it’s likely that Eminem wasn’t too bothered about this development, given that he’ll have made a load of money.
As well as Em’s tracks, when Michael bought up Famous Music – a subsidiary of Viacom – he also got the rights to artists such as Bjork, Shakira, and Beck.
Not bad going, really.
To be fair, this might not have come as a massive surprise to some people, as Michael famously bought up the back catalogue of The Beatles in 1985.
Shockingly, he even outbid Sir Paul McCartney for the rights, and Macca was actually in the band.
In ‘Just Lose It’, Eminem had mocked Michael a couple of times for his plastic surgery, as well as aping an incident in 1984 when Michael’s hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial.
After that, Michael gave an interview with a Los Angeles radio station in which he said: “I’ve admired Eminem as an artist, and was shocked by this.”
“The video was inappropriate and disrespectful to me, my children, my family and the community at large.”
In a later interview, he added: “I’ve never met Mr Eminem, and to have – I’ve always admired him – and to have him do something like that has been pretty painful.”
In the end, Eminem got his songs back.
Seven years after Michael died in 2009, it has been reported that Eminem bought back his publishing rights, and since 2016 he’s had full control over them again.
However, it’s interesting to note that during the time he was in charge of the rights to Eminem’s music, Michael never exerted pressure to change or censor the lyrics.
Make of that what you will.
Topics: Michael Jackson, Eminem, Celebrity, Music, Money
Tom Wood