Eminem really was visited by the Secret Service last year, but his palms, it seems, weren't sweaty.
BuzzFeed News has obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request confirming that the rapper, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, in January 2018 received a visit from the Secret Service over his "threatening lyrics" about President Trump and Ivanka Trump. In particular, Mathers in his song "Framed" raps that Ivanka Trump is "in the trunk of my car."
According to the documents, the Secret Service paid its visit after receiving a tip from a "concerned citizen," who was actually a TMZ employee asking whether the agency was "investigating Eminem for his threatening lyrics about First daughter Ivanka Trump." The Secret Service conducted a background check of Mathers, compiling what they describe as other "threatening comments" toward Trump and his family, and interviewed him in January 2018.
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It sure doesn't sound like he had many regrets about his Trump slams when Secret Service agents came knocking, though. According to the documents, when agents began reading lyrics back to him from his famous anti-Trump freestyle rap at the BET Awards, including a line about dropping an "awfully hot coffee pot" on Trump, "Mathers was familiar [with] the song and began [to] rap along with the interviewers as the verse was read."
Mathers would later rap about this experience in his 2018 song "The Ringer," which includes the lyric, "Agent Orange just sent the Secret Service to meet in person to see if I really think of hurtin' him," though it wasn't clear if he was actually serious. It turns out, he was. Mathers did express some doubt in that song over whether his anti-Trump performance was "worth it" in the end.
Ultimately, the case wasn't referred to a federal prosecutor, but at least those agents apparently got their own private Eminem show.
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