Eminem, Mariah Carey still dissing
They're well-armed belligerents firing musical salvos at each other, nasty cluster munitions packed with "hoe" bombs and "tears-of-a-clown" gas. Tensions escalated between them - two former allies, Eminem and Mariah Carey - until, on the brink of mutually assured destruction, the Great Powers drew back from the precipice, muttering darkly. Mankind is saved - for the time being.
it all began in the innocent summer of '01 - most of us didn't know al-Qaida from Al Kaline. Brash white rapper with enviable "skeels", Marshall Mathers III, a.k.a. Eminem, fresh off two hit albums, divorced from wife, on the prowl. Vulnerable diva Mariah Carey, the best-selling female artist of the '90s, divorced from father figure and Sony Music head Tommy Mottola, open to suggestion. Stars collide, but apparently the collision doesn't stay stuck.
The pop princess is discreet, the rapper raps, telling the British tabloid The Sun last summer: "There is truth to the story. Now I respect her as a singer but on a personal level I'm not really feeling it. I just don't like her as a person. I learned a lesson from it - don't believe the hype. She doesn't really have it all together."
I am confused as to what hype he is referring, in that I have never heard anyone accuse Mariah "Glitter" Carey as having it all together, but I digress... Not content to drag her name through the tabloids, the seething, vindictive rapper also dedicates a bile-filled, profanity-laced song to dismissing the miss on his superstar-confirming album, "The Eminem Show", the best selling LP of 2002. "Superman" is a tirade against some woman named Mariah: "Bitch if you died, wouldn't buy you life
What you tryin' to be, my new wife?
What you Mariah? Fly through twice
But I do know one thing though
Bitches they come they go" Stiffening notably, claws poised, the dissed diva tosses out a poisonous ditty of her own on the million-selling comeback "Charm Bracelet", released last December. "Clown" drips with contempt: "Who's gonna love you when
Your bankroll runs out
Who's gonna care when the novelty's over
When the star of the Show isn't you anymore
Nobody cares when the tears of a clown
Fall down ..." She also accuses him of being a frail crybaby, and intimates that she holds a special secret in reserve if things get really hostile. Whoa. Which brings us to the present. The camps of the Oscar winner (Eminem, Best Song for "Lose Yourself" from "8 Mile") and the regrouped former Mrs. Mottola have been staging recon raids on each other.
With Carey charging her batteries up in the Caribbean in preparation for her upcoming Charm Bracelet World Tour, (it launches June 24 in Osaka, Japan), the Em squad squeezed out gaseous emissions that implied he saved incriminating answering machine messages from a certain amorous, baby-voiced songbird, and might even sample them in a song in retaliation for "Clown", which in turn was in retaliation for "Superman" - can't we all just get along?
Responding preemptively, Carey struck with great force last week, telling the New York Daily News, "I don't know what the hell he's doing. It's a little excessive. Doesn't it seem a little bit girly? Like we're in a cat fight?" Ooh, bunker buster, impugning masculinity. She also denied saying anything graphic, "Graphic? I'm like Mary Poppins when it comes to that type of thing. I'm a jokester - I have little voices. I do little things like that that are fun and games."
Hanging heavy over this exchange - Carey's special secret. The Marshalls seemed to get the message as a spokesman reassured that it was all just a big misunderstanding. E! Online quoted Interscope Records spokesman Dennis Dennehy last Friday saying the answering machine rumor is "the most erroneous thing he's ever heard". Dennehy added, "He's not using Mariah's phone messages. Nothing's being used in an album."
Warnings heeded, heavy weapons put away, the secret intact, the superpowers resume normal affairs, if not relations. (MSNBC News)
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