Eminem said he felt ‘conflicted’ about casting someone to play Jessica Simpson in a music video, which seemed to make fun of her appearance.

Simpson recently updated fans on how she was doing six years on from deciding to go sober, with the actor looking unrecognisable.

The actor revealed that she’d hit ‘rock bottom’ back in 2017 when she was so drunk she couldn’t dress her kids, and the next day vowed never to let her children see her in a similar state again.

It’s been a long journey for her and she’s spoken about how she can now ‘never look back with regret’ after ditching alcohol.

The same might not be said for rapper Eminem after he featured a controversial portrayal of Simpson years ago, which he admitted he felt ‘conflicted about’.

Just to get you up to speed, in 2009 Eminem released the album Relapse, which contained a song called ‘We Made You’.

It was the first track from the album to be released, and it stirred up some controversy when the music video for the song came out, with an unflattering portrayal of Simpson.

In the music video for ‘We Made You’, Trisha Paytas played the role of Jessica Simpson and appeared to be dressed in reference to her character in The Dukes of Hazzard.

The songs lyrics mention her by name, going ‘Jessica Simpson, sing the chorus’.

During the video, Paytas danced and ate a cheeseburger, a reference to Simpson’s appearance at the time.

In the same year that the album was released, Eminem spoke to the Detroit Metro Times about the music video and his choice to have someone playing Simpson in it.

The rapper said he had been ‘conflicted’ about a mocking portrayal of Simpson in the music video, but chose to do it in the end.

“I felt kinda conflicted doing the Jessica thing,” Eminem said in 2009 of the video to ‘We Made You’.

“Because we were gonna have a Jessica in the video. When I say, ‘Jessica Simpson, sing the chorus,’ we were gonna have a chick who looked like Jessica Simpson come out and sing the chorus.

“But then Jessica got fat … And we wanted to stay within the current of what’s going on right now in pop culture.”

Eminem was defended over his decision by Paytas, who said getting the gig helped kick off her career, while she remembered he was very encouraging to her.

Trisha Paytas Reacts to Eminem Video Resurfacing—’I Will Always Be an Icon’

The Eminem music video that YouTube star Trisha Paytas has credited with kickstarting her career has gone viral all over again.

The singer and OnlyFans model, 34, parodied Jessica Simpson’s role in the 2005 Dukes of Hazzard remake for the rapper’s song “We Made You.”

Released in 2009, the song’s music video raised eyebrows with its impersonation of major newsmakers at the time, including Paytas as Simpson, porn star Lisa Ann as Sarah Palin and RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Derrick Barry who is famed as a Britney Spears impersonator.

In the video, Paytas is dancing next to Eminem with a bare midriff and Daisy Duke denim shorts.

A Twitter account dedicated to 2000s pop culture dug up the clip and marveled at Paytas’ cameo because it was long before she became an internet sensation.

“Eminem was such a menace bc how you open a song with ‘jessica simpson, sing the chorus’ and trisha paytas appears,” read the tweet by @popculture2000s.

Many fans agreed that they didn’t realize the dancer in the video was Paytas until it was pointed out in the viral tweet.

“How did I never know it was Trisha,” replied one person.

Another added: “Why are there so many things I never realized Trisha was in, she was everywhere.”

And a third wrote: “Wow Trisha did her thing!”

Ever in tune with viral social media moments, Paytas also weighed in on the tweet, saying her cameo made her an “icon.”

“I will always be an icon thanks to this music videos. 14 years later and it’s still going viral,” she wrote in her reply.

It’s not the first time Paytas has spoken about the impact appearing in Eminem’s video has had on her career.

“I totally owe Eminem for giving me my start. This video opened up so many doors for me at 20,” she told The Sun in 2014.

She also revealed in a TikTok that Eminem was really great to work with behind the scenes.

“Behind the scenes, Eminem, he was very fun. And just like all over the place, and just like a ball of energy,” Paytas said. “But once it turned off, like behind the scenes, he was like, ‘Hi, thanks for doing this.’

“I remember Marshall, or Eminem, being like ‘Oh my gosh, you look better than the real Jessica Simpson, don’t be self-conscious.’”

She added: “He was an insanely nice person.”

Paytas is best known for beginning her YouTube channel in 2006 and which features a diverse range of content from ASMR videos to comedy and singing. She has amassed about five million subscribers with almost one billion combined video views at the time of publishing.

She appeared as a contestant on Season 20 of Celebrity Big Brother in the U.K. in 2017 and created a podcast with fellow YouTuber Ethan Klein called Frenemies but left it less than a year later in 2021.

Paytas married Israeli photographer Moses Hacmon in December 2021 and she gave birth to their first child, a daughter, in September 2022.

She went into labor the day before Queen Elizabeth II died, which went viral because many joked Paytas would give birth to the queen’s reincarnation.

Many fans also hoped the social media sensation would name her daughter after the late monarch, but instead Paytas named the newborn Malibu Barbie.