Michael Jackson Reportedly Bought Rights to Eminem’s Catalog to Get Revenge for “Just Lose It”

If you're into Rock 'n' Roll history, then you probably know the famous Paul McCartney anecdote of how he and Michael Jackson, who collaborated on the 1983 hit track "Say, Say, Say" began talking about music publishing. In fact, Paul suggested that the King of Pop do it, to which Jackson joked that he was going to buy up all of Paul's work.

Paul said he laughed at this, but then later found out Jackson wasn't joking — he did indeed by his music catalog. But did Jackson buy Eminem's too?

Not exactly, but he did buy rights to his music. Unlike the aforementioned instance regarding Paul McCartney of The Beatles fame, where both he and Jackson seemed to have a pretty great working relationship with one another, Jackson's reasoning for buying Eminem's song catalog seems to have been done out of revenge.

If you recall, the year was 2004. There was tons of really long white t-shirts being rocked by everyone everywhere. For some reason, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore collaborated on major hip-hop tracks with top rappers like Twista and Kanye West — the chipmunk voice was omnipresent.

People were watching a glistening, jacked Brad Pitt stab ancient Greeks in Troy and saw Leonardo DiCaprio mumble about Blueprints in the Aviator. Everyone avoided carbs like they were the bubonic plague.

Folks were also bopping to another chart-topping Eminem hit, "Just Lose It," which contained a dig at Michael Jackson, and a whimsical music video that depicts the king of Pop losing his nose and experiencing a variety of unsavory situations.

Presumably, however, some of the lyrics in "Just Lose It" may have really gotten MJ irate, such as when Eminem states: "What else could I possibly do to make noise? I done touched on everything but little boys / And that's not a stab at Michael / That's just a metaphor, I'm just psycho."

Purportedly around a week after the song and subsequent music video debuted, Michael Jackson called into Steve Harvey's radio show stating he wasn't happy about the way Eminem showed his likeness. "I am very angry at Eminem's depiction of me in his video. I feel that it is outrageous and disrespectful. It is one thing to spoof, but it is another to be demeaning and insensitive," the musician told the comedian and host.

Jackson added: "I've admired Eminem as an artist, and was shocked by this. The video was inappropriate and disrespectful to me, my children, my family and the community at large."

So did that have anything to do with Michael Jackson's decision to buy Eminem's catalog? Michael did, indeed purchase the rights to Eminem's music in 2007. However, as Snopes writes: "Jackson had a 50 percent stake in a media company that bought Eminem's 'back catalog' in 2007."

Meaning it wasn't the entirety of Eminem's library.

The Guardian reported: "Michael Jackson now owns the rights to Eminem's back catalog, after his partnership company Sony/ATV purchased the publishing company Famous Music for $370 million. Bjork, Shakira, and Beck are also among the many artists whose publishing rights were sold by Viacom, of which Famous Music is a subsidiary, at auction yesterday afternoon."

Sony also paid Michael Jackson's estate $750 million for the rights to songs by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Eminem and more.

So while Michael Jackson didn't, in fact, buy the entirety of Eminem's catalog, he did have a vested financial interest in his tracks and many other notable musicians as well.