If you were breathing in 2009, you remember the visual. A tall, lanky guy in a grey hoodie, sporting a patchy goatee, stalking Mariah Carey through the streets of New York. It wasn't just a music video. It was a tactical strike. When Mariah dropped "Obsessed," she didn't just release a summer bop; she effectively weaponized one of the most chaotic celebrity feuds in pop culture history.
Honestly, the whole thing is kinda wild when you look back at it now. On one side, you have the "Songbird Supreme," a woman who built a multi-decade career on being untouchable and glamorous. On the other, you have Eminem, the Detroit rap god who made a living by burning every bridge he walked across.
They weren't supposed to mix. But they did. And it was messy.
The Six-Month Fling or the Great Hallucination?
So, did they actually date? That's the $64,000 question.
Eminem has been beating that drum since 2002. He first name-dropped her on The Eminem Show, specifically in "Superman" and "When the Music Stops." Back then, he told Rolling Stone there was "truth" to the rumors but claimed he "just didn't like her as a person." He later doubled down on Shade 45, insisting they dated for about six or seven months.
Mariah? She basically acted like she didn't know who he was. Well, sort of.
She told Larry King she met him a few times—maybe four total—and it was strictly professional. She even wrote "Clown" on her Charmbracelet album with lyrics that were pretty much a slap in the face: “You should’ve never intimated we were lovers / When you know very well we never even touched each other.” It’s the classic "he-said, she-said," but with much higher production values.
Why the Beef Started in the First Place (The 2026 Update)
For years, we thought this was just a failed hookup gone wrong. But recently, producer Damion “Damizza” Young—who was right there in the room during the Charmbracelet era—dropped a bit of a bombshell.
According to him, the friction actually started because Eminem wanted Mariah to play his mother in the movie 8 Mile.
Think about that for a second. Mariah Carey is only four years older than Eminem. At the time, she was in her early 30s and still very much in her "Vision of Love" era of superstardom. Being asked to play the alcoholic, aging mother of a guy almost your own age?
"Her insecurities kicked in big time," Young recalled.
She turned it down. Kim Basinger got the role. And suddenly, the lyrics got a lot meaner.
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When "Obsessed" Changed the Game
Fast forward to 2009. Eminem drops "Bagpipes from Baghdad," where he goes after Mariah and her then-husband, Nick Cannon. He called Nick a "prick" and said he wanted Mariah back. It was aggressive. It was classic Slim Shady.
Most people expected Mariah to do what she always does: ignore it and go buy a diamond. Instead, she gave us "Obsessed."
Breaking Down the Music Video
The video, directed by Brett Ratner, was a masterpiece of pettiness. Mariah played two roles: herself and a "stalker" who looked suspiciously like Eminem in a 2000s-era tracksuit.
- The Goatee: It was the exact "rugged" look Marshall Mathers was sporting at the time.
- The Hoodie: A staple of the Shady aesthetic.
- The Behavior: The character followed her everywhere, taking photos and looking generally unhinged.
The genius of the song wasn't just the beat or the "Why you so obsessed with me?" hook. It was the fact that she flipped the narrative. Instead of being the "crazy ex" he portrayed her as in his songs, she made him the obsessed fan who couldn't let go of a few business meetings from 2001.
Eminem's "The Warning" and the Aftermath
Eminem didn't take it lying down. Within weeks, he released "The Warning." This wasn't a radio hit; it was a scorched-earth diss track. He started the song by saying the only reason he dissed her was because she denied seeing him. He then proceeded to describe intimate details of their alleged encounters and even played voicemails that he claimed were from Mariah.
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"Bh, shut the f up 'fore I put all them phone calls out," he rapped.
It was dark. It was heavy. And for a moment, it seemed like things might get legally ugly. But then... it just kind of stopped. Mariah never responded to "The Warning." She moved on to her next project, proving the "obsessed" point better than any lyric could.
Where Are They Now?
In a recent 2025 interview on Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen asked Mariah about the 8 Mile rumor. She didn't deny it. She said there was "some truth" to the idea that he approached her for the movie, but she laughed off the rest of the drama as "just a rap lyric."
Nick Cannon, for his part, spent years trying to jump into the ring. He released diss tracks in 2010 and again in 2019, but most fans agree they didn't have the same bite as the original back-and-forth between the two icons.
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Actionable Takeaways from the Feud
- Control the Narrative: Mariah won the PR war by making the conflict look "below her." By framing him as a fan rather than a contemporary, she took away his power.
- Silence is a Weapon: After "The Warning," Mariah's refusal to engage further made Eminem's continued jabs look like he was shouting into a void.
- Receipts Matter (or they don't): Eminem claimed to have photos and tapes for 20 years. He never released them. In the court of public opinion, a claim without proof eventually expires.
If you're looking to revisit this era, the best way is to watch the "Obsessed" video and then listen to "The Warning" back-to-back. It’s a fascinating study in how two different genres handle conflict. One uses a surgical knife; the other uses a sledgehammer.
Check out the Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel credits if you want to see just how deep the production team went to make that track a hit—it's still one of the best-produced "diss" tracks in pop history.