“When it first happened, I was like, first, I didn’t know how, how somebody got it,” Eminem said about the 2019 leak of “Things Get Worse” when speaking to SiriusXM’s Gray Rizzy on Jan. 4. On the track, Eminem, 48, rapped a verse about siding with Chris Brown over his infamous 2009 assault on Rihanna. A year after its leak, Em apologized to Rihanna on his new album, but as he told Gray Rizzy, Slim Shady has “zero recollection” of even recording “Things Get Worse.”
“Like, the rhyme schemes didn’t even sound familiar to me,” added Eminem. “I was like, ‘what the f-ck, I said that?’” On the aforementioned leaked track, Eminem rapped, “Let me add my two cents /Of course, I side with Chris Brown / I’d beat a b-tch down, too / If she gave my d-ck an itch, now.” It was written and recorded in 2009, during “the early stages of the Relapse record I was working on,” as Eminem told Gray Rizzy. “So, you know, it’s 10 plus years old, but not making excuses for it. I said it, and I was wrong for saying that. It was f-cking stupid.”
Eminem went into how “Things Get Worse” happened. “You know, a lot of times, especially with the Relapse record, when I first started learning how to rap again, because of the drug situation that I went through and having to relearn a lot of things, that was one of those things that it was like, ‘well, if it rhymes say it.’ I think that being able to look back, I mean, that’s not even an excuse, but I’m just saying like that there was a phase I was going through with that Relapse record. I don’t know. It was one of those things. I think I just said it cause it rhymed. And I think I’m sure looking back now, I should have thought better of it.”
Eminem’s public apology came on the Music To Be Murdered By: Side B, specifically on the track, “Zeus.” “But, me, long as I breathe, promise to be honest,” raps Em. “And wholeheartedly, apologies, Rihanna / For that song that leaked, I’m sorry, Ri / It wasn’t meant to cause you grief / Regardless, it was wrong of me.”
When the song leaked in 2019, Eminem issued a statement through his rep, explaining that the song was “over ten years old,” and after he recorded it, “he scrapped it and rewrote it. He and Rihanna have a great relationship.” The two have worked together on a trip of hits, including “Love The Way You Lie.” “Numb,” and “Monster.” Though Eminem apologized privately to Rihanna after the song’s leak, he wanted to do it publicly because, as a source told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY, he wanted to show “that he has matured.”