Exclusive: Eminem And WWE Reach Deal For Appearance, Soundtrack

The Rap God will be in your ears this fall — especially if you’re a WWE fan.

Fightful Select reported this afternoon that WWE and recording artist-actor and overall megastar Eminem have reached a deal that will see the platinum-selling rapper contribute to the soundtrack of WWE 2K20 later this year. 2K Sports has seen the likes of Jay-Z help curate their soundtracks on the basketball end of things, and WWE 2K17 featured a soundtrack curated by P. Diddy.

Beyond soundtrack work, we’re told there’s also an agreement for Eminem to appear on an episode of WWE Smackdown later this year. The deal, reached today, was put together in part to promote the launch of WWE Smackdown Live on the Fox Network. WWE is also planning on having a championship belt produced for Eminem.

Eminem has been a major part of pop culture for over two decades, but this will mark his first appearance in WWE. However, several of his foes have appeared for the company — notably Insane Clown Posse, Machine Gun Kelly, and rock band Limp Bizkit. There was a rumor that Eminem had reached a WWE deal way back in 2008, but his publicist quickly denied it.

Eminem’s team has denied the story in a statement issued to Pro Wrestling Sheet, but Fightful sticks by our story, and was told the deal was closed this afternoon. The comment from Eminem spokesperson Dennis Dennehy can be seen below.

There was a very brief, exploratory conversation that involved a third party and 2K Sports, not Eminem’s team. It has not gone beyond preliminary discussions, and any reports to the contrary are false. Right now there are no plans to further pursue it.

We’ve been subsequently told that Eminem’s team and management weren’t happy about the news leaking on Tuesday afternoon. Whether or not that means that the for the deal itself is speculation. A 2K spokesperson told Fightful “Soundtracks and projects are constantly in development at 2K, but an agreement has not yet been finalized with any artist for our impending slate of games.”

Fightful has reached out to WWE about the story.