CULTURE: Cooper to Eminem: Are You Homophobic?

Anderson Cooper recently berated a Vince Vaughn movie trailer for using the word “gay” as a joke—but he was decidedly easier on Eminem when he interviewed the rapper on last night’s 60 Minutes. Cooper asked Eminem, who has often been branded a homophobe, why he uses words like “lez” and “f*g” in his lyrics, but seemed to accept this answer: “The scene that I came up in, that word was thrown around so much, you know? F****t was, like, it was thrown around constantly, to each other, like in battling, you know what I mean?”

So, Cooper responded, does Eminem not like gay people? “No, I don't have any problem with nobody, you know what I mean. Like, I'm just whatever,” the rapper said, adding that he doesn’t use profanity “around my house, no. But this is music, this is my art, this is what I do.” And as for the people criticizing his lyrics, he feels he’s “singled out,” he says. Other rappers “do and say the same things that I'm saying. And I don't hear no one saying anything about that. I didn't just invent saying offensive things.”