The story behind Eminem’s Awkward ESPN interview revealed.
Back in 2013, Eminem was going around for the promo run of his eighth studio album “The Marshall Mathers LP 2“. Eminem also made a stop at the Michigan-Notre Dame football game in Ann arbor, for a short interview with ESPN hosts Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit. The interview started with something which made the Detroit Rapper go viral everywhere on the internet. At the start, Eminem turned into some character to mess around with hosts, which was very hilarious as well as confusing for some people.
When Herbstreit asked Eminem what he was most enthusiastic about on his next album, ‘Marshal Mathers LP 2,’ he sheepishly responded ‘nothing,’ adding that he’ll probably be most glad to be done with it after the album’s November 5 release.
Now recently, Kirk Herbstreit sat down with Dan Patrick on his show for an interview where he was asked about what really happened that day. “If somebody didn’t see when came into the booth with you and Brent [Laughs]. How would you describe Eminem’s mindset,” asks Dan Patrick.
“It’s an interesting question and people that are not familiar with that need to google that,” says Kirk. “So he came in with his bodyguards, it was very clear that the whole booth had to be emptied so all the spotters, statisticians, everybody had to get out of the booth. It just had to be Brent and me in there, or he wouldn’t have come into the studio. So we cleared everybody out, he came in at a break, could not have been any cooler. Came up he’s like ‘what’s up Kirk, how you doing man, nice to meet you, Mr. Musburger wow it’s a great honor.’ We were just sitting there hanging out, he put his headphones on and we were just talking. Then he goes, man, I hate live TV man and I go ‘you kidding me’, this is easy. And he goes where’s the camera and it’s like one of the cameras in these booths, you’ve seen them, they’re the size of a coke can. And they’re just kind of hanging up at the top and I just kind of pointed to it, He goes okay cool right there.”
He continues, “All of a sudden, three two one we’re back and brent starts to talk and we go from like an overshot of the big house in ann arbor up to the booth and all of a sudden, I look over and he’s turned into something, I don’t even know what he was, he’s just all of a sudden like and Brent’s like all right here he is Eminem’s up here with us. And Eminem just starts, like this goes into this character for one of his songs and I was just talking to him like what happened. And he stayed in that character for like a minute, then he snapped out of it and started to do the interview but man it went viral, It was everywhere. Everywhere I went people were like dude what’s up with Eminem and then here you are asking me years later, it was on the Today show, Good Morning America, and everywhere. What a genius move by him because he had a new album coming out and what better way to market that than to do that prank and it got everybody talking.”
Then Dan asks Kirk if he thinks Eminem did that on purpose. “Absolutely,” he says. “I think he went into that Berserk character just to have some fun and make people be like, what’s wrong with Eminem, was he high, and all that noise at least made people know that he’s got a new album coming out, that’s what I think he did.”
MMLP2 is a sequel to The Marshall Mathers LP, which was released in 2000. Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin acted as executive producers for The Marshall Mathers LP 2, which was recorded between 2012 and 2013 with a variety of producers. Skylar Grey, Rihanna, Nate Ruess, and rapper Kendrick Lamar, among others, make guest cameos.
The Marshall Mathers LP 2 opened at #1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, selling over 792,000 copies in its first week. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it quadruple platinum in March 2017. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, it earned Eminem a record-breaking sixth Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.
Watch the interview below.
