Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has slammed Eminem for taking the knee during his Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday night.
Trump ally Giuliani even went so far as to suggest the Detroit rapper should leave the US because of the controversial gesture, which he made during an electric show midway between the Los Angeles Rams showdown with the Cincinnati Bengals.
"Let's get right to Eminem taking a knee," Giuliani said on his radio program, The Rudy Giuliani Show, on Monday.
"Why doesn't he go to another country? I mean, go take a knee someplace else. You know how many cops were defending him and protecting him at that game yesterday?" he continued.
Giuliani went on to criticize the NFL, saying that they had "made a mockery of law enforcement" by not stopping the rapper. He also called out the league for including Snoop Dogg in their performance, calling him "Snoop 'Kill Police' Doggy Dogg."
As well as Snoop, Eminem was joined on stage by a star-studded lineup of fellow hip hop icons including 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre, and Mary J. Blige. While Giuliani clearly wasn't a fan, the nostalgia-heavy performance has been hailed by fans and critics as one of the greatest halftime shows ever seen.
Eminem's controversial gesture came just after he finished a rendition of his Grammy-winning hit 'Lose Yourself' in the SoFi arena.
As the song ended, Slim Shady dropped to one knee and held his head in his hand in an apparent tribute to former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who in 2016 began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial discrimination.
Kaepernick's protest gesture has since been taken up by athletes from a range of different sports in countries across the world.
When Eminem took the knee on Sunday night, reports circulated that it was against the explicit instructions of NFL bosses who had tried to ban him from doing it during rehearsals.
But NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy has since denied that the league tried to censor Eminem's performance, Independent reports.
"We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that," said McCarthy in a statement.
