Eminem had a surprising pick in mind to play his mom in 8 Mile: Mariah Carey. According to producer and former radio executive Damizza, who worked closely with Carey, the rapper was determined to get the pop star involved in the film.
Speaking on the TFU Podcast, Damizza recalled Eminem pushing for a meeting. “I’m not getting in the middle of that. I know how this ends,” he remembered thinking when Em first made the request. Carey initially turned it down, not realizing it was about a movie. But once she learned the context, she agreed to meet.
At the meeting, Eminem wasted no time. “The first thing out of [Eminem’s] mouth is, ‘I want you to play my mother,’” Damizza said. Carey didn’t take it well. “Her insecurities kicked in big time.”
According to Damizza, the conversation quickly took a turn away from business. “It was her chasing him, not him chasing her,” he claimed. “Next thing I know, we are at Eminem’s house… and they disappear. The second they went into his room, literally, I was like, I’m going back to LA. There is no point of me being here. It went from business to fucking.”
While Carey has consistently denied any romantic involvement, speculation about a fling between the two has lingered for decades. Eminem added fuel to the fire in 2009 with his diss track “The Warning,” aimed at Carey after she released “Obsessed,” a song many believe was about him.
On the track, Em rapped: “Wow Mariah, didn’t expect you to go balls out / Bitch shut the fuck up ‘fore I put all them phone calls out…” and added, “Listen, girly, surely you don’t want me to talk about how I nutted early…”
Ultimately, Carey passed on the role of his mom, and Kim Basinger earned critical acclaim for her performance.
Leave a Reply