The 'Eternals' actress remembers an embarrassing moment that left her red-faced as she ran into the 'Lose Yourself' hitmaker backstage at the Academy Awards.

• Nov 11, 2021

AceShowbiz - Salma Hayek will never forget the day she finally met her hero, Eminem - because she spat on him.

The Mexican actress suffers from acute stage fright but has had a longtime routine she uses to calm herself down when she's really stressed out - she sings the rapper's hit "Lose Yourself" in her head.

And when she was about to hit the stage as a presenter at the 2020 Academy Awards, she was extra nervous and turned to her calming trick.

"I have terrible stage fright...," she told pop star Kelly Clarkson on her daytime talk show. "I really get it very bad, I go dizzy... I have a song that I put in my head that helps me get through it - Lose Yourself. You hear that and you feel like you can do anything. So I have it in my head and I was going to present at the Oscars which is really nerve-racking."

"And this one day I was extra nervous. I hadn't slept, I was feeling jetlagged, I was feeling shaky. So… I'm drinking... water because my mouth goes dry... I'm... walking towards (the stage) and... singing the song in my head... and then I go, 'Wait a minute, have I lost it?' "

Hayek hadn't realised Eminem was performing at the Oscars that year - 17 years after "Lose Yourself", from his 2002 film "8 Mile", won the Oscar for Best Original Song - and he was playing the same hit at that very moment. But she was so confused, she thought she was losing her mind.

"I (asked someone), 'Is Lose Yourself playing right now...?' It was really scary… I was actually embarrassed to ask (and) I hesitated for a minute. And then he (Eminem) comes out (off stage) exactly on the side where I am and I'm like, 'I love you, I love you.' And I spit it (water) out. And then I see he's in shock with water all over him and I go, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' And (security staff) are like, 'Go go,' and I'm like, 'I'm sorry, somebody take a picture.' And we took a picture then I left."

The next day she was mortified when she remembered the awkward meeting.

"I said, 'Oh my God, my hero thinks I'm a freak!" she groaned.

But Salma cheered up when she later read an interview with Eminem about his Oscar night experience.

"He said something like, 'I really enjoyed it because I got to meet Salma Hayek'," she added. "But I spit on him. He really looked very terrified."