Eminem and Ed Sheeran have been unlikely friends for quite some time — and the superstars recently reunited onstage for a surprise performance.
Rolling Stone reports the Detroit rap icon surprised the British singer-songwriter on Saturday (July 15) during Sheeran’s concert at the Ford Field in Em’s hometown.
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In addition to delighting Sheeran’s cheering fans with a duet of “Lose Yourself,” Eminem performed his super-smash “Stan” after Sheeran’s introduction.
“I wondered if I could play you a cover of an Eminem song tonight. I think you know it. We rehearsed it today. Let’s see how it goes,” Ed told the crowd before launching in to what many assumed was a solo rendition of “Lose Yourself.”
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Then, without warning, Eminem himself appeared on stage and began rapping his opening verse, much to the delight of the Motor City crowd.
“Can I just say one thing, he was gonna come on and do one song, but I said you can’t come on in Detroit and just do one song. Do you want another song?” Sheeran later asked the crowd before he and Em teamed up for the Marshall Mathers LP hit.
Eminem and Ed Sheeran’s reunion marked the first time that they’ve performed together since the former was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year. However, the pair have been friendly since Sheeran appeared on Eminem’s 2017 album Revival, on the song “River.”
For what it’s worth, too, Ed Sheeran has nothing but high praise for Eminem, recently revealing how Marshall Mathers helped cure him of a childhood affliction.
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“[My uncle] just said to my dad, ‘This guy is the next Bob Dylan. You gotta let him listen,’” Sheeran told Howard Stern back in May. “And by learning that record — and rapping it back to back to back to back — it cured my stutter.”
He continued: “I think it’s different with Eminem because he is quite reclusive, doesn’t see or meet that many people. I’ve known him now [for] six years and we’ve done three songs together, I’ve played with him twice onstage. He’s another person I really relate to, as he lives in his hometown still and has his eco-system around him.”
Sheeran previously said that he and Em became “pen-pals” by bonding over their cassette collections.
“I collect cassettes and I’ve got Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder and they are quite difficult to find,” he said to British TV host Jools Holland in 2021. “The only person I know who collects the same is Eminem. He collects cassettes – that’s his thing. He loves collecting. He is avid at going to find them. We have started having this, it’s like a very cool pen-pal thing.”
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He continued: “I got a message the other day about an LL COOL J cassette. He said, ‘This is the cassette which made me want to start rapping.’ I sent him Van Morrison and I will send him David Gray’s White Ladder next.”
