Years after their rumored feud shook the hip-hop world, Nelly is finally setting the record straight about his relationship with Eminem. In a surprising twist, the ‘Hot in Herre’ rapper not only takes full responsibility for the past beef but also calls Eminem ‘GOAT.’ Click below to see what Nelly had to say 

Nelly has opened up about his brief war of words with Eminem during the early ’00s, a beef he admits was due to his own misunderstanding of what he perceived as a slight at the time.

In an interview with Bootleg Kev, the legendary hitmaker addressed the rift between himself and Em, issuing a public apology to the Detroit icon for his misreading of the situation.

“I misinterpreted something when I was really, really new and I want to apologize to Em,” Nelly said while expressing his remorse over the back-and-forth. However, he attributed his aggressive response to his hardscrabble background as a St. Louis native and says he has since had a change of heart.

“I was at a time where, I’m coming in, I’m the new guy, anybody talking… Well, somehow I misinterpreted that he had something to say about what we were doing.”

The Country Grammar rapper would clap back at Eminem during an appearance on MTV’s TRL, addressing Eminem’s “sly little comments” while sending a veiled threat about a potential visit to his hometown going awry.

“I don’t play with candy. I eat M&Ms…. I just don’t think [the] dude plan[s] on coming to tour to St. Louis,” Nelly said of Em at the time.

However, the 50-year-old now says he believes he mistook Em’s actions or words at the time, and has nothing but respect for him, going as far as referring to the hitmaker as “the GOAT.”

“Somebody came and was like, ‘Yo, Em wanna come through and holler,’” Nelly recalled on the podcast. “He was like, ‘Yo man, my daughter…’ I felt like such a d**k. We were Eminem fans! And just miscommunication, man.”

The “Hot In Herre” creator also recalled a conversation with Em during an encounter with the lyricist and his daughter, Hailie Jade, at an afterparty in Detroit. According to Nelly, the two were able to put their past differences behind them and move forward on good terms.

“He’s a dope cat and I’m glad we got that out of the way,” he said of Em. “It’s f**ked up when people that you f**k with and that you admire on a level… it’s like, dude spits…. I’m glad we squashed that. Em is a cat.”

See Nelly’s interview with Bootleg Kev below.