Eminem has revealed why it took him 17 years to perform Lose Yourself at the Oscars.
This comes 17 years after the rapper won the Oscar for best original song for the track in 2003 - a first for any hip hop artist. But while Eminem might have made musical history, he chose to have his collaborator, Luis Resto, accept the award on his behalf at the Academy Awards.
That's why no one expected the now 47-year-old musician to perform the song at the 2020 Oscars - almost two decades after it first made history at the event.
Watch the performance below:The performance was appropriately accompanied by footage from 8 Mile, the semi-autobiographical film about the rapper's life, and unsurprisingly, it earned the rapper a standing ovation.
Now, in an interview with Variety, Eminem has explained why waited so long to perform the song at the Oscars: "I kinda figured maybe since I didn’t get a chance to do it at the time, maybe it would be cool.
"Back then, I never even thought that I had a chance to win, and we had just performed Lose Yourself on the Grammys with the Roots a couple of weeks before the Oscars, so we didn't think it was a good idea.
This is the moment Lose Yourself won at the 2003 Oscars:"And also, back at that time, the younger me didn't really feel like a show like that would understand me. But then when I found out I won, 'That's crazy!' That to me shows how authentic and real that award is - when you don't show up and you still win. That makes it very real to me."
The rapper continued: "I don't know that I was disappointed [to have missed it], I was blown back by the fact that I won."
"I don't even think I understood back then that you could get an Oscar for a song, and I remember being kinda confused about why I was even up for one, because as a kid with the Oscars, it was like a vacuum."
Eminem then revealed how he'd spent the night he made history, and to be honest, it sounds like an equally wonderful evening.
He told Variety: "I think I was just at home with my daughter - and I didn't watch it, either. At that point in time Hailie had to be at school early in the morning, so [I was sleeping].
"Luis Resto, my keyboard player who produces records with me, went up and accepted it - and I know people were probably like, 'Who the f- is this guy?'
"So he called me, and I remember the phone kept ringing, and I'm like 'Motherf-, I'm tryin' to sleep!' But [I answered] and he's like 'Hey man, you won!' 'I did? Sh-! Cool!' But that was a different time and I was in a different place in my life."
It's like the old saying goes, better to perform your Oscar-winning song late than never!
