Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has shared his thoughts on efforts to cancel Eminem over the lyrics in his 2010 hit “Love The Way You Lie” ft. Rihanna.
“I’m just, like, is that where we are right now? I mean, at this point, you’re talking about the Salem witch trials,” he fumed in an interview with 95.5 KLOS. "You’re talking about America in the ’20s where the KKK was a political force. You’re talking about complete condemnation without context or any rationalization for an action like that.”
Last month, a TikTok user, who has since been removed from the app, uploaded a clip “Love the Way You Lie” in which Eminem raps: “If she ever tries to f**king leave again, Imma a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire.” The user wrote: “Yesssss lets cancel him.”
“To me, that’s [what’s] most dangerous — when the mob decides that you’re gone. That is Caesar at the Colosseum, for god’s sakes. That’s when it’s dangerous,” Taylor said. “The level of censorship that we’re starting to see…
“It can’t be that way. If we can’t have a conversation, how the hell are we gonna communicate? And if we can’t understand the difference between metaphor and complete reality, then we’re in real trouble.”
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In 2010, Rihanna – a survivor of domestic abuse – told MTV News the song was “something that needed to be done” and the way Eminem did it “was so clever.” She said: “He pretty much just broke down the cycle of domestic violence, and it's something that a lot of people don't have a lot of insight on, so this song is a really, really powerful song, and it touches a lot of people.”
Eminem reacted to the “cancel” campaign by tweeting a line from “Tone Deaf,” a track on his 2020 album Music to Be Murdered By. “I won't stop even when my hair turns grey (I'm tone-deaf) / 'Cause they won't stop until they cancel me.”