Eminem says he has “zero recollection” of recording controversial Rihanna verse

Eminem has broken down his recent in-song apology to Rihanna on his track ‘Zeus’, explaining that he has “zero recollection” of recording the controversial lyrics about her which leaked online in 2019.

‘Zeus’, which featured on last month’s ‘Side B’ to ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, saw the rapper apologising to the singer for saying that he “sided with Chris Brown” over Rihanna after Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault in 2009.

“But, me, long as I re-promise to be honest / And wholeheartedly, apologies, Rihanna,” Eminem raps on ‘Zeus’. “For that song that leaked, I’m sorry, Ri / It wasn’t meant to cause you grief.

“Regardless, it was wrong of me.”

Speaking to Sirius XM’s Shade 45 programme about ‘Zeus’, Eminem said that he didn’t know how the decade-old song which contained the offensive Rihanna lyrics had leaked in the first place.

“I didn’t know how somebody got it,” Eminem told Sirius XM host Gray Rizzy. “I have no, zero recollection of even remembering doing that verse. The rhyme schemes didn’t even sound familiar to me.

“So I was caught off-guard, too. I was like: ‘What the fuck, I said that?’”

Eminem continued by recalling how the controversial lyrics in question were recorded during the early stages of the recording of his 2009 album ‘Relapse’ when he was “learning how to rap again because of the drug situation that I went through”.

“I’m not making excuses for it: I said it and I was wrong for saying that, it was fucking stupid,” he said about the Rihanna lyrics. “That was one of those things that it was like: well, if it rhymes, say it.

“That’s not even an excuse, but I’m just saying that there was a phase I was going through with that ‘Relapse’ record. It was one of those things. I think I just said it cause it rhymed.

“Looking back now, I should have thought better of it.”

Last weekend saw Snoop Dogg respond to online comments about the reaction to his recently shared view that he could “live without” Eminem’s music.