The U.S. Secret Service has looked into reports that Eminem wrote “I’d rather see the president dead,” but it doesn’t plan a formal investigation, said a Secret Service spokesman.
John Gill, the spokesman, cautioned that such lyrics can have unintended consequences.
“The Secret Service has no current plans to open an investigation into this matter,” Gill said Monday. But “we are concerned about communications that can be interpreted in a manner perhaps not intended by the artist, and the potential peripheral impact that such lyrics can have on other individuals.”
The Secret Service made preliminary inquiries because of lyrics in an unfinished Eminem song, “We Are American,” that was leaked on the Internet.
The lyrics say “[Bleep] money, I don’t rap for dead presidents, I’d rather see the president dead.”
Representatives of Eminem could not be reached Monday night for comment.
Gill said the Secret Service must balance its duties of investigating such communications with its respect for freedom of speech. He added, however, that it was necessary for the Secret Service to look into communications that could be considered threatening to the president. “The Secret Service takes every potential threat against the president seriously,” Gill said. “We don’t have the luxury to do otherwise.”
A spokesman for Interscope Records, Eminem’s label, said Friday: “This is an unfinished song that was either lost or stolen, and there was no determination when, where, how or if it was going to be used. Who knows how it was going to change? Who knows where in the [recording] process it was?”
