HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 17: Nelly, winner of the iHeartRadio Music Landmark Award, poses on the Winners Walk during the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre on March 17, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Nelly and Eminem have long since squashed any beef remaining between them, but that wasn’t always the case.
Nelly says the tension he dealt with regarding a rivalry with Eminem in the early 2000s was the result of a miscommunication and the two have long since made ammends. He discussed their relationship during a new interview with Bootleg Kev.

“Miscommunication,” he said of the feud. “I misinterpreted something when I was really new, and I wanted to apologise to him. I misinterpreted that he had something to say about what we were doing. When I went on MTV, I made some comments because, you know, I’m still fresh from Louis. But that wasn’t the case. Em is the GOAT. He’s so dope.” From there, he recalled running into Eminem at an event in Detroit. “Somebody came and was like, ‘Yo, Em wants to come through and holler.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ Then he came in, and he’s such a dope cat. He had Hailie with him, she was young. And he was like, ‘Yo, man, my daughter.’ I felt like a d*ck. Because we were Eminem fans! I’m glad we got that out of the way. It’s f*cked up when [it’s like that with] people that you f*ck with and that you admire. Yo, dude spits! I’m glad we squashed that,” he said.

Nelly & Eminem Rivalry

While Eminem and Nelly never broke out into a fully-fledged feud, there was a bit of a cold war between them in the early 2000s as they both dominated the charts. Nelly initially believed Eminem had been throwing shots at him and called him out while serving as a guest host on TRL, which only made the rumors of a beef between them worse. “I don’t play with candy, I eat M&Ms,” he remarked at the time.

Elsewhere in Nelly’s new interview with Bootleg Kev, he discussed his relationship with Ashanti. The two famously dated from 2003 to 2013 before getting back together a decade later. They’ve since gotten married and welcomed their first son, Kareem Kenkaide Haynes. Nelly explained to Kev that the decision to get married came quickly after learning Ashanti was pregnant. “Once we found out that she was pregnant, I was just like yeah… We hadn’t talked about any of that yet,” he said. “But I was like, ‘Yo, you know what. Let’s just knock this out because we’re gonna be doing so much, and everything’s moving so fast.’ And I didn’t want her to be a baby mama.”