Dr. Dre Breaks Silence About Eminem's Controversial Super Bowl Moment
For all the crowd-pleasing hits Dr. Dre's crew — which included Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and 50 Cent — performed during the Super Bowl halftime show, the hip-hop medley has generated a surprising amount of controversy. For instance, there is the ongoing generational feud between Gen Xers, who said the halftime show was calibrated for their cohort, and millennials, who declared the show a blast from their generational past. Then the New York Post reported that Snoop Dogg was smoking weed before the show as if it was a scandal, only to be not-so-gently reminded that smoking weed is kind of Snoop's whole brand.
Slim Shady had his own controversial moment, or so it seemed, when he took a knee on stage in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Given the NFL's fraught (to put it mildly) relationship with this particular form of protest, many viewers took it as a major statement that the NFL definitely wouldn't have approved. Well, here's what Dr. Dre himself had to say about it.
Dr. Dre said the NFL had no problem with the knee
Contrary to popular online belief, Eminem's decision to take a knee while on stage during the Super Bowl halftime show wasn't actually a big "F*** You" to the NFL after all. At least, not according to Dr. Dre. In an interview with TMZ, Dre clarified that the NFL only made minor changes to the proposed show, and Eminem's silent nod to Colin Kaepernick wasn't among them. "Em taking a knee, that was Em doing that on his own," Dre said. "There was no problem with that." For what it's worth, the NFL has also released a statement saying they were aware the rapper planned to kneel and didn't try to stop him, per the Independent.
That's not to say there weren't a few changes here and there that the league asked the crew to take out — namely gang references at the beginning of Kendrick Lamar's set. But overall, everything was smooth sailing. "All in all, everybody came in, we were professional," Dr. Dre told TMZ. "Everybody was on time and really felt the magnitude of what this thing was, and what we were going to be able to accomplish."