Tyler the Creator has asked fans not to “get offended” on his behalf by Eminem’s homophobic slur against him.
When the rapper said he thought a new Eminem track was “horrible”, Eminem responded by including him on a diss track, “Fall”, with the lyrics: “Tyler create nothing, I see why you call yourself a faggot, bitch.”
Asked what it felt like to hear the slur in a Guardian interview, Tyler said: “Did you ever hear me publicly say anything about that? Because I knew what the intent was.
“He felt pressured [to say he regretted the lyric] because people got offended for me. Don’t get offended for me. We were playing Grand Theft Auto when we heard that. We rewound it and were like: ‘Oh.’ And then kept playing.”
Eminem’s attack on Tyler was met with widespread criticism and Bon Iver, who featured on the song, tweeted that he had asked for it to be changed: “Not a fan of the message, it’s tired.”
Eminem later said he regretted the line: “In my quest to hurt him, I realise that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it.”
Last month, Tyler returned to the UK for the first time since he was banned from the country in 2015 to perform a gig at the O2 Academy in Brixton.
Tyler the Creator is currently in the middle of his international Igor tour.
