Singer/songwriter and rapper Jelly Roll has achieved remarkable success in recent years, delivering hit songs and teaming up with some of music’s biggest names. In a recent interview, he shared a heartfelt goal to reconcile two of his collaborators who have been in a years-long feud — Eminem and MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly).
Jelly Roll was featured in Eminem’s song “Somebody Save Me” and in MGK’s “Lonely Road,” both of which were released in July 2024. In a guest appearance on the podcast Flagrant, host Andrew Shulz commended the singer for his collaboration with the two artists, saying. “These guys are mortal enemies and somehow you are so talented that you are positioned in between both of them and they’re like ‘I still want to work with Jelly Roll.’”
The animosity between the two artists dates back to 2012, when MGK tweeted about Eminem’s daughter, who was 16 years old at that time, writing, “…she is hot as f**k, in the most respectful way possible cuz Em is king.” In the years that followed, the two engaged in a heated diss battle through their songs.
Eminem talked about the beef in an interview in 2018, saying that his reason for slamming MGK was actually “more petty,” as it was a response to MGK implying that he hindered his career. “I don’t give a f**k about your career… You know how many f**king rappers are better than you? You’re not even in the f**king conversation,” he said. In the same year, MGK said Eminem didn’t want to have a conversation with him, adding, “F**k you. You blew it. You blew it. It’s cool ‘til it ain’t.”
Jelly Roll offered MGK a new perspective on Eminem’s disses
Jelly Roll has nothing but love for the two rappers but has been friends with MGK for a long time. He shared that he offered MGK his perspective on being dissed by Eminem, telling him that they both grew up idolizing the iconic rapper. “If you got mentioned in an Eminem song, it was like being mentioned in a comedy special. You’re on f**king fire. You couldn’t be hotter,” she stated.
He also feels that the rappers could patch things up, as he sees “so much more of them in each other than they know.” And while he’s talked to MGK about the issue, he hasn’t approached Eminem yet as right now, he’s just grateful to be in the rapper’s circle. Still, he has high hopes that they could bury the hatchet.
“They’re gonna get together one day eventually. I think that they’re gonna find each other’s heart more than they don’t. And if they never do connect that way, [the feud] did more for both of them than it did to hurt either one of them.”
Interestingly, Jelly Roll and MGK also had beef with each other before they became good friends. They laughed about it in the podcast Jelly Roll: Countdown to Beautifully Broken, where MGK said he hated Jelly Roll so much back then. Jelly Roll admitted that he was hating on MGK for being a “skinny and handsome” dude, and the hostility, in part, stemmed from the fact that there were only a few white rappers at that time and they were “bred to hate each other.”