Eminem was once fearful of killing his deal with the Jordan Brand after making a silly joke while speaking to Michael Jordan.

The rapper entered a partnership with the brand for the release of a special lineup of Jordan 4s in 2015 and has seen a few other sneakers drop since then. So he should be feeling pretty secure now.

However, he’s recalled one of his initial conversations with MJ he feared would cause the deal to fall through as he made a quip “His Airness” did not find particularly funny.

A few years ago, Em was speaking on his Shade 45 channel on Sirius XM Radio and revealed that he was having a great phone chat with Jordan until he threatened to dunk on him.

He claimed to have told MJ, “Yo man, when are you going to come to Detroit so I can dunk on you?”

The joke was greeted by a lengthy silence before MJ laughed sarcastically. And Eminem said he was really afraid of losing the collab after the call ended awkwardly.

MJ would have probably seen the humor in the question had he been invited to any other city to get dunked on. But, given the experiences he had with the Bad Boy Pistons in the 80s, it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t laugh.