50 Cent Remembers His ‘Wild,’ Eyebrow-Raising First Meeting With Eminem

50 Cent and Eminem have been collaborators and friends for decades now, but 50 thinks his first encounter with Em left the Detroit rapper feeling a little uncertain for a moment.

At about 51 minutes into a new Million Dollaz Worth Of Game interview, 50 said:

“It was wild. It felt like… remember that show they had, Punk’d on MTV? I thought they had cameras and they was going to come out and say, ‘You’ve been punked.’ I was in California, he flew me to LA, right? I came out, I was so… bugged out from the experience that I came through the airport with the [bulletproof] vest and sh*t on. I’m lucky I took the shock plate out the front of the joint. […]

I get there, he like, ‘Yo!’ Hugs me, feel the vest and sh*t and was like [shocked expression]. [I said,] ‘Yo, this is going to be the biggest sh*t, right?’ He’s like, ‘Yo, so excited.’ It made me question whether what was happening was happening. […] It felt so good that it couldn’t be right.”

He added, “When I met him, the first night I met him, he had an event. The Marshall Mathers LP just came out, the first week, he sold 1.7 million records. And he was so excited about me that I’m looking like, ‘You serious?'”