Haley Joel Osment Thinks Kendrick Lamar Swapping His Name for Joel Osteen in Drake Diss Track Was 'Intentional'

Mar. 15, 2025

Kendrick Lamar, Haley Joel Osment and Joel Osteen.Photo:Stefanie Keenan/Getty; Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty

Stefanie Keenan/Getty; Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty

Haley Joel Osmentis giving his two cents onKendrick Lamarpotentially mixing him up with a celebrity pastor in his song“Euphoria.”At the Los Angeles premiere of his latest film,Blink Twice, Osment, 36, revealed that he has heard theDrakediss track — and thinks Lamar’s use ofJoel Osteen’s name rather than his own was intentional.When asked whether he’d been following theongoing feud between Drake and Lamar, theSixth Sensealum toldthe Associated Pressthat he had been — “just a little bit.” Or rather, “it’s in my text inbox,” he added.In “Euphoria,” Lamar name drops Osment and Osteen. Sort of. “Am I battlin' ghost or AI? N—- feelin' like Joel Osteen,” he raps on the track. “Funny, he was in a film called A.I. / And my sixth sense tellin' me to off him.”Listeners were confused, as neitherA.I. Artificial IntelligenceorSixth Sensefeatures Osteen, a 61-year-old televangelist. Both films do, however, feature a young Osment.In the past, both Osteen and Drake have been accused of using ghostwriters in their work — so Lamar could’ve been shadily joking it’s hard to tell who wrote the lyrics of Drake’s diss tracks about him.The actor told AP that he was “shooting in Ireland” when the Drake diss first dropped on April 30, and his phone blew up with messages about the song.“I got like a hundred texts in the middle of the night,” Osment recalled. “I was like, what is going on?”Haley Joel Osment in Los Angeles on July 24, 2024.Unique Nicole/GettyAs for the actual lyric, Osment said he thinks the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper is “too precise” to have made a blunder of that proportion.“I mean, I don’t know for sure, and I’m not gonna assume that he knows my exact name,” he continued. “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.”“Kendrick’s too precise to just make a mistake like that, I think,” he added.“Euphoria” was Lamar’s response to Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which saw the Canadian rapper refer to Lamar as a “coward.”Thesince-deleted dissalso featured controversial AI-generated vocals fromSnoop Doggand the lateTupac Shakur.

Haley Joel Osmentis giving his two cents onKendrick Lamarpotentially mixing him up with a celebrity pastor in his song“Euphoria.”

At the Los Angeles premiere of his latest film,Blink Twice, Osment, 36, revealed that he has heard theDrakediss track — and thinks Lamar’s use ofJoel Osteen’s name rather than his own was intentional.

When asked whether he’d been following theongoing feud between Drake and Lamar, theSixth Sensealum toldthe Associated Pressthat he had been — “just a little bit.” Or rather, “it’s in my text inbox,” he added.

In “Euphoria,” Lamar name drops Osment and Osteen. Sort of. “Am I battlin' ghost or AI? N—- feelin' like Joel Osteen,” he raps on the track. “Funny, he was in a film called A.I. / And my sixth sense tellin' me to off him.”

Listeners were confused, as neitherA.I. Artificial IntelligenceorSixth Sensefeatures Osteen, a 61-year-old televangelist. Both films do, however, feature a young Osment.

In the past, both Osteen and Drake have been accused of using ghostwriters in their work — so Lamar could’ve been shadily joking it’s hard to tell who wrote the lyrics of Drake’s diss tracks about him.

The actor told AP that he was “shooting in Ireland” when the Drake diss first dropped on April 30, and his phone blew up with messages about the song.

“I got like a hundred texts in the middle of the night,” Osment recalled. “I was like, what is going on?”

Haley Joel Osment in Los Angeles on July 24, 2024.Unique Nicole/Getty

Unique Nicole/Getty

As for the actual lyric, Osment said he thinks the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper is “too precise” to have made a blunder of that proportion.

“I mean, I don’t know for sure, and I’m not gonna assume that he knows my exact name,” he continued. “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.”

“Kendrick’s too precise to just make a mistake like that, I think,” he added.

“Euphoria” was Lamar’s response to Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which saw the Canadian rapper refer to Lamar as a “coward.”

Thesince-deleted dissalso featured controversial AI-generated vocals fromSnoop Doggand the lateTupac Shakur.

source: people.com