Haley Joel Osment says Kendrick Lamar is simply "too precise" of a lyricist for his debated Joel Osteen line in the Drake-dissing "Euphoria" to have not been entirely intentional.
Speaking with the Associated Press for a recent interview on the red carpet of Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice, the 36-year-old actor was asked about the lyrics in question, which saw Kendrick naming the megachurch pastor while referencing two of Osment’s most widely seen films, A.I. and The Sixth Sense. While some questioned if this was purely a mix-up, others have since argued that Kendrick's decision to use Osment and Osteen interchangeably was a purposeful move in line with the larger sentiment of the back half of the song's second verse.
"I was shooting in Ireland when all that happened and I got like a hundred texts in the middle of the night," Osment, whose "I see dead people" line from M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense was later quoted in Kendrick's "Not Like Us," said. "I was like, what is going on?"
Asked if he thought the lyric was intentional, Osment confirmed that was his stance, adding that he's read "certain analysis" on the beef that supports this.
"I think he's too precise," he said. "I don't know for sure and I'm not gonna assume that he knows my exact name, but the way I've heard people talk about that and certain analysis that I've read about it, I think that it's an intentional scrambling of my name and that other guy's name. Because Kendrick's too precise to just make a mistake like that, I think."
Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, led by the psychologist-and-patient duo of Bruce Willis and Osment, turned 25 this month. The breakout film scored multiple Oscar nominations and firmly established all involved in the pop culture lexicon for years to come. Also this month, Shyamalan’s latest, the Josh Hartnett-starring thriller Trap, hit theaters.
For Osment, Blink Twice isn’t the only film on his 2024 release schedule. In March, he appeared in the comedy Drugstore June with Esther Povitsky and Bobby Lee. As for Drake, he recently gave fans, not to mention the world at large, "100 gigs for your headtop."