Kendrick Lamar has finally received a response from The Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment after referencing him on his Drake diss track “Euphoria.”
On the track, the Compton native rapped: “Am I battlin’ ghost or A.I.? N-gga feelin’ like Joel Osteen / Funny, he was in a film called ‘A.I.’ / And my sixth sense tellin’ me to off him,” seemingly confusing the actor with televangelist Joel Osteen.
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Osment was asked about the song in an interview with the Associated Press and said he didn’t believe that Kendrick made a mistake.
“I think he’s too precise. I mean, I don’t know for sure and I’m not going to assume that he knows my exact name,” the former child star said.
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“But the way I’ve heard people talk about that and certain analysis that I’ve read about it, I think that it’s an intentional scrambling of my name and that other guy’s name because Kendrick’s too precise to just make a mistake like that, I think.”
Osmen also revealed that he was in Ireland shooting a new film when “Euphoria” dropped and he “got like a hundred texts in the middle of the night, and I was like, ‘What is going on?!'”
Haley Joel Osment doesn't think Kendrick Lamar made a mistake in the Drake diss song "Euphoria," which conflated his name with the pastor Joel Osteen. The star of "The Sixth Sense" and "A.I." appears next in "Blink Twice." pic.twitter.com/icVaZjEDYE
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) August 11, 2024
Osment starred in both The Sixth Sense and the Steven Spielberg film A.I. which Kendrick references in his verse, but it’s unclear how the controversial pastor fits into the lyric unless the rapper did indeed get their names confused.
The Pulitzer Prize winner continued to reference The Sixth Sense on “Not Like Us” which opens with the line: “I see dead people,” which is the most famous quote from the film.
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M. Night Shyamalan, who directed The Sixth Sense, also recently commented on Kendrick Lamar referencing the film in his Drake diss tracks.
Appearing on Way Up With Angela Yee, the Oscar-nominated director said: “We kind of lightly know each other, and I did know [he was a fan]. He’s very gracious with me, and I love him.”
Shyamalan then recalled being told about “Euphoria” for the first time.
“The first song [of the Drake disses] ends with it,” the filmmaker remembered. “So someone in the office was like, ‘Oh, Kendrick just dropped something and it references one of your [movies].’ I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ That was before everything blew up.”
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“Euphoria” also had further pop culture impact when it was referenced on WWE Raw by wrestler CM Punk.
Delivering a promo to rival Drew McIntyre, Punk quoted the song and said: “You hate the way I walk, you hate the way I talk, the way I dress.”
