John Waters Defends Eminem, Citing NSFW Gift to Elton John

Eminem has come under fire for using homophobic lyrics on his albums through the years, but filmmaker John Waters is coming to his defense on that topic.

Waters joined the Las Culturistas podcast with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on Wednesday (May 13), where he discussed the wild choice of a wedding gift Eminem had for Elton John and David Furnish.

“He’s not homophobic,” Waters, who has openly spoken about his sexuality, proclaimed of Em. “He gave Elton John and David Furnish matching gold c–k rings for their wedding.”

It’s quite the visual to think of Sir Elton and Furnish opening up that gift following their December 2014 wedding.

It’s a gift that the Rocket Man has previously shared his appreciation for. The icon told The Guardian of the gift in 2019: “They sit there, like the crown jewels, in this beautiful box on satin cushions. They’re wonderful to look at. … They’re kind of sacrosanct. The fact they came from Eminem makes it even better.”

Slim Shady’s relationship with Elton goes back to the two teaming up for “Stan” at the 2001 Grammy Awards.

Eminem explained to MTV in 2004 that he didn’t know Elton John was gay at the time he met him, and they’ve remained cool over the years. “I didn’t know anything about his personal life. I didn’t really care,” he said. “But being that he was gay and he had my back, I think it made a statement in itself saying that he understood where I was coming from.”

The Detroit hip-hop legend separates his personal beliefs from the Slim Shady alter ego he uses as a character in rap, which is much more controversial.

“Well, look, I’ve been doing this s–t for, what, 14 years now? And I think people know my personal stance on things and the personas that I create in my music,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013 following the criticism of “Rap God.” “And if someone doesn’t understand that by now, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change their mind about it.”

Later in his career, Eminem has had a tougher time separating the personas, and he expressed regret for using a homophobic slur while dissing Tyler, The Creator on Kamikaze ‘s “The Fall,” which saw him refer to the Grammy-winning rapper as a “f—-t, b—h” in 2018.

“I think the word that I called him on that song was one of the things where I felt like, ‘This might be too far,'” Em said to Sway in an interview on YouTube. “Because in my quest to hurt him, I realized that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it. It was one of the things that I kept going back to and going, ‘I don’t feel right with this.'”

Listen to John Waters on Las Culturistas below:

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/eminem-not-homophobic-john-waters-elton-john-gift-1236246941/)._