Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie" Feat. Rihanna

Hot on the heels of Eminem's eight VMA nominations, the highly anticipated video for his latest chart-topper, "Love the Way You Lie," premiered Thursday on MTV at 9 p.m. The Joseph Kahn-directed video was based on Eminem's troubled relationship with his ex-wife, Kim and features Rihanna, who sings the hook, along with actors Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan, portrays the downward spiral of an abusive couple as they appear to be just as much lovers as they are fighters.
To call Eminem hip-hop's Elvis is correct to a degree, but it's largely inaccurate. Certainly, Eminem was the first white rapper since the Beastie Boys to garner both sales and critical respect, but his impact exceeded this confining distinction. "Love the Way You Lie" the second single off rapper's seventh studio album, "Recovery." "It's the story of them getting to know each other, and it's the story of their tumultuous relationship, and it was the story of the breakdown of their relationship," the 33-year-old actor elaborated further. "Ultimately, what I think he's trying to say in the song is that he should have walked away a little bit quicker than he did and not let it get as messy as it did."
The rapper commented, "[The song] I did with Rihanna is one of those tracks that I felt like only she could pull it off, only she could do it. It was great to have Rihanna, Megan and Dominic on board for this. They really brought it and made this video super-powerful." The songstress also talked about this collaboration with Eminem: "It's something that, you know, [Eminem and I have] both experienced, you know, on different sides, different ends of the table. It was believable for us to do a record like that, but it was also something that needed to be done and the way he did it was so clever."
The most important thing the video is doing is raising the topic of dating violence among young people. The video shows off love and violence intertwine seamlessly, is especially potent because of Eminem's and Rihanna's personal histories with violence or abuse. During the four-minute span of "Love the Way You Lie," Rihanna alternately sneers in the frame and seems to physically diminish before finally crumbling to the ground in front of the burning house that serves as her backdrop throughout, and Eminem sings his verses in a desolate cornfield. Through the video Fox as an abused and abusive girlfriend to Monaghan. They fight, hit, break things and steal. At the end of the video, both Fox and Monaghan's characters are engulfed by the flames.