While Mike Napoli’s beard — and bare chest — was the biggest news in Boston last night, another respectable facial hair showing was blowing minds on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, legendary producer Rick Rubin’s glorious and time-honored beard wasn’t enough to distract viewers from what might possibly have been Eminem lip-synching through his two-song set.
Talk about Shady.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III was on stage last night to promote his new record, MMLP2, which drops Tuesday. Check him out rolling through “Berzerk,” and judge for yourself (once you can pull your eyes off Rubin behind the decks, of course)
So… was he lip-syncing or not? A bit hard to really tell. The Twitterse, naturally, was up in arms, with some die-hard fans coming to the rapper’s defense and others recalling Ashlee Simpson. Here’s a sampling of tweets…
@Eminem Did you really lip sync on SNL. Yikes bro….
— AG (@MAJGARRISS) November 3, 2013
Eminem didnt lip sync u can clearly hear the guy sing the verses then cut off at the last word so mr porter nd the back singers to yell them
— Slim Shady Hachem (@Ali_Hachem06) November 3, 2013
never thought i’d see the day when eminem would lipsync on national tv, we really have entered a brave new world
— Becca Laurie (@imbeccable) November 3, 2013
SMH…Just watched @Eminem lip sync #Berzerk on #SNL
— N I G H T M A R E (@NightmareOG83) November 3, 2013
I didn’t know you were allowed to lip sync on SNL. Eminem wasn’t singing Bezerk live, was he? Sounded just like the record.
— Cedric Golden (@CedGolden) November 3, 2013
Really cool of Rick Rubin to show up and watch Eminem lip sync embarrassingly badly.
— John Gaudes (@johngaudes) November 3, 2013
Oh Eminem did you just pull off the worst lip sync since Milli Vanilli? Yup. Appears so.
— Paul Tappay (@PaulTappay) November 3, 2013
Eminem isn’t even trying to lip sync properly on SNL right now
— Jäder Meister (@Jader_meister) November 3, 2013
I love Eminem but he totally Ashlee Simpsoned that performance. #LipSync
— Darin Bartholomew (@darin22b) November 3, 2013