Brent Musburger Denies Eminem Was High During Infamous Interview

ESPN

Eminem was no stranger to mind-altering substances before cleaning up his act around a decade after he was catapulted into the mainstream, but Brent Musburger denies he was under the influence during an in-game interview where the rapper appeared to be on another planet.

On September 7, 2013, Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit were in the booth to cover the showdown between Ohio State and Notre Dame in Ann Arbor for ESPN. When the second half kicked off, they were joined by Eminem, who stopped by to promote the debut of the music video for “Berzerk.”

By that point, the man who helped put the Detroit rap scene on the map had been sober for more than five years and had released multiple albums that largely revolved around his issues with substance abuse. However, many viewers were convinced he’d fallen off the wagon thanks to how he was behaving when he was introduced.

While Eminem chalked up his fairly strange behavior to the nerves that came with being on live television, there were plenty of skeptics who didn’t buy into that explanation. However, Musburger has come to his defense.

On Wednesday, the longtime broadcaster sat down with Dan Patrick for an interview where he got the chance to reflect on the segment in question while firmly denying Eminem was actually in an altered state.

Here’s what he had to say:

“He wasn’t high. Now, everybody thinks he was because he came in, he’s standing between Herbstreit and me, and he was not familiar with the monitors. So he was looking at himself and he kind of froze on the camera…

It was great. We laughed about it. He couldn’t have been nicer. 

Also, he was a knowledgeable fan. When you see him at the Lions games, he knows what’s going on out there.” 

Let he who has not been entranced by their own image being broadcast to millions of people on national television cast the first stone.