Eminem pushed back on criticism of his new track with Kid Rock, casting the pairing as friendship and music, not politics, after some fans moved to punish him for working with a MAGA artist.
Stereogum reported that Marshall Mathers posted a defense on October 17, 2026, of his verse on “Heal My Faith,” a cut from Kid Rock’s Christian album Halfway 2 Jesus.
The post was blunt. Mathers said the work was not a political statement. It was a reunion with an old friend.
“Not about choosing sides, just choosing to make music with my old friend. Praying for all of us. #HealMyFaith @KidRock”
“Not about choosing sides, just choosing to make music with my old friend. Praying for all of us. #HealMyFaith @KidRock”
His verse on the track drove the same point home in plain language.
“From shock rap to the rock rap, my homie and me/ He is my brother, not my political enemy.”
Kid Rock and Eminem are not a new pairing. Eminem appeared on Kid Rock’s 1998 song “F*** Off” from Devil Without A Cause. Kid Rock later showed up in Eminem’s 2013 “Berzerk” video.
In a Billboard interview tied to the new album, Kid Rock said the bond runs deep and that he tried not to pull Mathers into his political lane.
“We've been friends for, like, 40 years. I really didn't want to drag him into my political world.... We talk about [politics] a little bit, not a ton. There's a lot of stuff we agree on, and we can have a laugh about what [we don't]. That's why I asked him to draft a verse for me.”
That is the record the two men put forward: decades of friendship, limited political talk, and a request for a verse, not a campaign endorsement.
The backlash did not wait for Eminem’s October post. Breitbart reported that after Kid Rock revealed the Eminem feature on Halfway 2 Jesus, some Eminem fans on Reddit vented disappointment and floated boycotts over Kid Rock’s support for President Trump and the MAGA movement.
One Reddit user wrote that they were “so disappointed in Em,” claimed he “knows better,” and objected to a collab with a “MAGA nut,” with some fans saying they stripped Eminem songs from playlists. Kid Rock, for his part, has publicly described loving Eminem and staying friends for years even while disagreeing on politics.
Source framing casts Eminem as a longtime Trump critic and Kid Rock as an avid MAGA supporter. Their own words still put music and loyalty ahead of a purity test.
Separate from the album, Kid Rock was supposed to speak at a MAGA festival in Kentucky last month. The event was canceled after only six people bought VIP tickets.
That detail says more about one poorly sold gathering than about the friendship. It does not revise the verse Eminem chose to cut, or the reason he gave for cutting it.
Left-leaning fan culture often treats association as contamination. Work with the wrong artist, and the playlist gets purged. Mathers refused that script. He named Kid Rock his brother, not his enemy, and told critics the collab was about an old friend, not a side in a war.
Grown men still get to make records with their friends. Political enforcers on social media do not own the studio.
