Tyler the Creator converses with Eminem for ‘attacking’ the male rapper’s album after watching Painkiller

Rapper said Netflix miniseries about the opioid crisis gave him new perspective on 2010 album

Tyler, The Creator has apologized for publicly slamming Eminem’s Recovery album, crediting Netflix’s 2023 Painkiller miniseries with changing his “limited perspective” on drug addiction.

During a recent appearance on Maverick Carter’s Mavericks show, Tyler, 33, addressed his past tweets about the rapper’s 2010 record, which featured more introspective and personal songs about his road to sobriety.

“I was a big Eminem fan, and when that album came out, I f***ing hated it – hated it – publicly said like, ‘This s*** is whack,’ didn’t like it,” the “Earfquake” artist admitted.

It wasn’t until he watched Painkiller, Peter Berg’s one-season drama about America’s opioid crisis, that he gained a new perspective on addiction and felt “so bad” about his previous criticism.

“Because thinking from his perspective, someone like me publicly saying that stuff, and him getting off drugs and being clean and getting to a point in life where that’s behind him, and me implying, ‘Nah, this s*** is wack.’ He probably felt like I was attacking him,” he said.

Tyler explained: “I thought I was just like, ‘I don’t like the music.’ He was in a different part of his life and probably felt like I was attacking him. And, now, I feel so bad about saying that stuff because my perspective was so limited.”

Eminem eventually hit back at Tyler in his 2018 diss track “Fall,” with the lyrics: “Tyler create nothin’. I see why you called yourself a f***** b****.”

In an interview with The Guardian a year later, Eminem implied he regretted using the homophobic slur against Tyler. “Because in my quest to hurt him, I realize that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it… at the time I was so mad,” he said at the time. “It was one of the things that I kept going back to and going ‘I don’t feel right with this’.”

Tyler the Creator said he feels ‘so bad’ for previously criticizing Eminem’s 2010 album ‘Recovery’ (Getty Images)

“I love Eminem,” Tyler clarified to host Carter. “That dude taught me how to rap. I learned how to put words together in rhythm because of some of the Eminem stuff I was hearing, and his storytelling.