Ed Sheeran and Eminem at Ford Field in Detroit. Screenshot courtesy of E Pro.

When you think of things that go together naturally, you think of things like peanut butter and jelly, sugar and spice, and hugs and kisses. But what about…Ed Sheeran and Eminem?

It turns out that Sheeran and Slim Shady really are two great tastes that go great together, as Detroit fans of Sheeran saw during his concert at Ford Field on Saturday.

Eminem, who hails from the Motor City, surprised tens of thousands of fans when he appeared onstage at the Ed Sheeran concert at Ford Field over the weekend.

Sheeran was around two hours into his set when he told fans he wanted to play a cover of an Eminem song, He began singing Em’s Oscar-winning anthem “Lose Yourself” when a hoodie-clad Eminem popped up and joined Sheeran in singing, which thrilled the stunned audience at the arena.

“Detroit,” Eminem yelled to the crowd of around 65,000 fans. “Stand up!” They were already standing though, according to people who were on the scene.

“Can I just say one thing?” Sheeran asked the screaming crowd after the pair finished “Lose Yourself,” pointing toward Eminem. “He was gonna come on and do one song, and I said, ‘you can’t come on in Detroit and just do one song.’ Do you want another song?”

The pair then rolled into a quickie duet on Em’s 2000 smash “Stan,” with Sheeran singing the chorus originally performed by Dido.

Ed Sheeran’s Instagram.

“Thank you Ed,” said the real Slim Shady at the end of his brief guest stint. “I appreciate you, Detroit. I love you.”

Sheeran had appeared the night before in nearby Royal Oak, Michigan, but his stripped-down performance at that smaller venue did not include a guest performer of this magnitude.

The combination of rapper Marshall Mathers and the sultan of soft rock Sheeran isn’t all that strange, though. Sheeran has performed with Eminem before; in fact the two played “Stan” quite recently, during the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. That was Eminem’s last public appearance.

And Sheeran’s fandom goes back ever further than that: in a documentary released earlier this year, Sheeran detailed his love for Eminem and also said the rapper’s songs helped him cure a stutter he had when he was a kid.