Eminem‘s new album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)” was released on Friday and is full of lyrics about current events and celebrity culture, including multiple Diddy disses. But one other new song from the artist seems destined to cause controversy.
Eminem raps about the tragic “Rust” shooting — in which Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with an on-set gun carrying live ammunition — in the new song “Fuel,” the ninth track on the album.
“Fuck around and get popped like Halyna Hutchins / Like I’m Alec Baldwin, what I mean is buckin’ you down, coup de grâce then,” he raps.
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The song and album’s release date happens to fall on the third day of Baldwin’s Santa Fe manslaughter trial for the shooting, which has propelled the actor back into the news.
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During opening statements on Wednesday, Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro outlined much of the defense strategy, saying that, ““On a movie set, you’re allowed to pull the trigger. Even if he intentionally pulled the trigger… that doesn’t make him guilty of homicide.”
“When this issue discussed, it’s easy to sort of pull yourself into courtroom-land and away from a movie set,” Spiro argued later in the opening statement. “He did not know, or have any reason to know, that the gun was loaded with a live bullet. That’s the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element.”
“The Death of Slim Shady” is Eminem’s twelfth studio record. He has called it a “conceptual album” and warned “if you listen to songs out of order, they might not make sense.”