Detroit rapper and actor Eminem once roasted Danica Patrick by using her Indy 500 crash as a violent metaphor in a song track.

Eminem has never shied away from controversy, and his 2018 album proved he was still swinging hard. That year, the Detroit-born rapper released a 13-track album, closing with the explosive song “Venom.” A reference to the anti-hero Marvel movie with the same name.

The final verse of the track took a sharp jab at none other than motorsports trailblazer, Patrick, and her very last race before retirement.

Eminem Name-Dropped Danica Patrick in a Savage Rap Metaphor

A longtime fan of racing and former ARCA team owner, Eminem was quite familiar with the world of motorsports, which made his harsh reference to Patrick all the more brutal.

In the closing track of his album, “Venom,” Eminem used Patrick’s final race, the 2018 Indianapolis 500, as a metaphor for obliterating his own rivals. Referencing her crash in that event, he explicitly told his rival rappers that he was going to obliterate them.

He rapped, “So this ain’t gonna feel like a love tap. Eat painkiller pills, (expletive) a blood track. Like, what’s her name’s at the wheel? Danica Patrick. Throw the car into reverse at the Indy, end up crashin.’ Into ya, the back of it—just mangled steel. My Mustang and your Jeep Wrangler grill.”

In his rap, Eminem showed that despite being a racing fan, he was not a Patrick fan. With the savage verse, he implied that he had already forgotten who she was (“what’s her name”).

He also pointed out her failures and painted Patrick’s final moment in the sport as an image of destruction. A theme Eminem used to convey the lyrical chaos he planned to unleash on those he viewed as his enemies.

What Eminem was rapping about was Patrick’s disastrous farewell double-header in 2018, which ended with crashes in both the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500.

Patrick, a polarizing figure in motorsports, made history as the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race at the 2008 Japan 300. To date, she remains the highest-finishing female driver in both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.

Despite her vast accomplishments on the track and her long list of admirers, she also has her fair share of critics. And the American rapper was a member of the latter group.

While Eminem’s brutal diss might have skipped the nuances, it fitted his aggressive lyrical persona and reopened the debate around Patrick’s legacy. It also reminded the motorsports community and critics alike how public figures, especially barrier-breaking women in male-dominated sports, often become targets in pop culture.

This was not the first time the Slim Shady rapper got involved in controversy outside of music. It was also neither the first nor the last time that Eminem turned a real-life moment into a brutal metaphor, sparking headlines far beyond the rap world.