Eminem Once Told Trump Fans to Pick a Side. Now He Is on Kid Rock's Gospel Album, and His Own Fans Are Picking One.

Nine years after the BET freestyle, Eminem's answer to the most divided era in modern American politics is a verse called "7 Sins" for a friend who wears the other team's hat.

We already covered what is confirmed about "7 Sins", the Eminem feature on Kid Rock's new Christian album Halfway 2 Jesus. This piece is about the reaction, and about why a guy who once told Trump supporters in his fanbase to choose between him and the president would now put his name on a record with Donald Trump's most loyal rock star.

Eminem and Kid Rock in the official "Berzerk" music video (2013), about 2:26 in. Still captured from Eminem's official YouTube upload.

The backlash, in their own words

Kid Rock posted the album cover and full tracklist on X on October 1. Track 3 reads "7 Sins" featuring Eminem.

The reaction from a loud part of Eminem's fanbase was immediate. On Reddit, as collected by The Mirror, one fan called it "a massive disappointment." Another wrote that they had "just removed the last of the Eminem songs" from their playlist. A third said it proved "there is no such thing as morals when dollars are involved." Within a day the boycott talk was a headline at outlets from AOL to Breitbart, which framed it as Eminem fans threatening to walk.

The anger makes sense once you remember what Eminem has said about Trump, and about Trump fans, on the record.

2017: the line in the sand

On October 10, 2017, the BET Hip Hop Awards aired "The Storm," a four minute a cappella freestyle Eminem filmed in a Detroit parking lot. He called the president a racist, took on his response to NFL players kneeling, Puerto Rico and gun violence, and then turned on his own audience. He told any fan who supported Trump that they had to choose a side, and made it clear which side he was on.

"The Storm," Eminem's 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards freestyle, via Guardian News.

Three months later he doubled down in a Billboard interview. "At the end of the day, if I did lose half my fan base, then so be it," he said, describing himself and Trump as "polar opposites."

He did not soften after that. In 2020 he licensed "Lose Yourself" for a Joe Biden campaign ad. In October 2024 he walked on stage at a Kamala Harris rally in Detroit to introduce Barack Obama.

2024: the week the tone changed

The new insight is not that Eminem changed his politics. He has not. It is that, somewhere between 2017 and now, he stopped treating people on the other side as people he had to cut off.

The clearest public moment came the same week as that Harris rally. On October 25, 2024, Kid Rock, who had performed at the Republican National Convention that summer, posted a video saying "I love Eminem. We've been friends for many years. I don't agree with his politics," and in the same breath called his own stance "unequivocally MAGA." Two days later the Detroit Lions beat the Titans 52 to 14, and Eminem answered him directly:

Eminem's October 27, 2024 post and Kid Rock's reply the same day.

Kid Rock's reply is the thesis of the new album, two years early: "Who would of thought it would be 2 white rappers from Detroit / Michigan to show our divided Country what class is."

2026: a sin song on a salvation album

Kid Rock spelled out the reason in the album's foreword, as quoted by Complex. He called Eminem "my old friend," wrote that "we differ politically and on other things, but we've stayed friends through it all," and said he hoped that "sets an example for people who've lost friends or stopped talking to family because they think differently." When Complex ran that quote under the headline that the two "prioritize friendship over politics," Kid Rock reshared it with one word.

The title matters too. On a record built around faith, Eminem's is the one called "7 Sins." Kid Rock did not ask Em to show up and testify. He put the guy who once drew a line through his fanbase on the track about falling short, on an album about being forgiven anyway. You can read that as Kid Rock's framing. You can also read Eminem saying yes as the point: grace for people you disagree with is not the same thing as agreeing with them.

That is the part of this the boycott posts miss. Nothing in 2026 takes back "The Storm." What changed is who Eminem is willing to sit next to, not what he believes.

The history the backlash skips

This is not a new friendship being tested by a new album. Eminem appeared on Kid Rock's 1998 breakout Devil Without a Cause, back when neither of them was famous outside Michigan. In 2009 Eminem told the Detroit Metro Times the two were "pretty good friends." In 2013 Kid Rock walked into the "Berzerk" video in a white fedora and gold chains, and that cameo is the still at the top of this page.

"Berzerk," cued to Kid Rock's cameo.

What we could not verify

Eminem has not made any public statement about "7 Sins" or the backlash as of October 4. Every line above about why he did it comes from Kid Rock's foreword and posts, not from Eminem or his manager Paul Rosenberg. The release date is also unsettled in reporting: The Mirror says Halfway 2 Jesus arrives October 17, while Complex reported that no date had been announced. "7 Sins" itself has not been released, so nobody outside the studio knows yet whether Eminem's verse touches politics at all.

When it drops, we will have the verse breakdown here first.