Resurfaced clips of “tension” between Eminem and Christina Aguilera in the early 2000s prove the pair’s feud is still the subject of intrigue.

Depending on your age, the early 2000s can either feel like five minutes ago or like they took place in another universe entirely. It was a simpler time, before the days of the iPhone and with stars like Eminem and Christina Aguilera absolutely dominating the musical sphere and reaching the pages of both music and gossip magazines on the regular. Eminem’s 1999 debut studio album The Slim Shady LP announced him as a major breakout, and Christina’s self-titled debut was released the same year to the same effect. But of course, that’s not the be-all and end-all of how their stories intertwined.

Eminem and Christina Aguilera’s feud surprisingly began as a ‘crush’

Christina’s aforementioned debut saw her throw away her Disney Channel image and embrace her new life as a pop star, earning lots of fans with singles like Genie In A Bottle.

Eminem was illuminated in the media spotlight at the same time, and you may or may not have seen a resurfaced interview of Christina from 1999 making the rounds on TikTok in which she says she’s “looking forward to meeting” the rapper.

“I want to meet Eminem,” she told a reporter. “I think he’s cute.” In yet another interview around this time, she described him as a “crush” she’d had “for a while now.”

The interest appeared reciprocated on Eminem’s part too, as he took to the stage after winning an MTV VMA and claimed it would find pride of place “right between my Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera poster.”

Christina’s crush on Eminem soon turned into an all-out beef

The following year, on the other hand, talk of romance soured when Christina took part in a documentary for MTV and spoke about Eminem. “He’s got a cute face, look at his face! He’s so cute,” she said.

Nothing to raise eyebrows, right? However, she then dispelled rumors the pair were dating and said: “I heard he’s married now. The girl that he talks about killing on his record, actually.”

He did indeed marry Kimberly Anne Scott in 1999, and the lyrics of his song 97 Bonnie & Clyde drew backlash for the explicit and violent lyrics about her.

“It’s pretty graphic, taking this girl out, killing her,” Christina remarked about the song. “Like, the mother of his child, it’s kind of aggravating to listen to. Some of his album is kind of disturbing.”

It didn’t take long for her comments to get back to Eminem. “She heard a rumor that I was married,” he told a reporter [via BuzzFeed News]. “I was like no, you didn’t just say that, you little b**ch. And I was like, why did she just pick my video [to watch on the documentary] if she’s picking it apart? I’d rather of had her say nothing about me.”

He claimed she put him “on blast” over nothing but a rumor, which inspired him to reference her on his popular song The Real Slim Shady, in which he mocks the Christina documentary and claims he gave her “VD”, aka a venereal disease.

It didn’t end there, though, as he rapped the lyrics on his song Off The Wall: “Causing terror to Christina Aguilera when I grab her by the hair and drag her across the Sahara.”

If you were confused about the rift between them in clips of the 2002 MTV VMAs, now you know. It got pretty ugly.