In a Genius annotation, Skylar explains how Rihanna was close to taking an early version of “Kill For You” for herself:

“It’s been so long since we started working on “Kill For You.” I can’t remember exactly how it went down, but I believe that during one of my trips to Detroit, I worked on a bunch of different hook ideas for some tracks Marshall, Mark Batson and Mike Elizondo had made. “Kill For You” was one of them. I remember us all being in the studio together in Detroit working on it, and I remember working on the verses in my hotel room there in Detroit.

But I think that might have been two separate trips because we had found out Rihanna was interested in the song. I believe we got back together to finish and flesh it out with her in mind. She even tweeted the line, “You could make me a believer, even if that s**t ain’t true,” way back then, in 2014.”

You gone make me a believer…even if that shit ain't true #Barz — Rihanna (@rihanna) May 27, 2014

Skylar about the song:

“Ever since the beginning, I felt like the message of the song would be more powerful as a duet, so just a few days before I had to turn in the album I let Marshall know my thoughts and asked if he wanted to give it a shot. I didn’t expect him to do it especially with he time restraint, but thought it was worth asking. A few days later he turned in the final mix/master with his verse on it. I had never heard his verse before we sent the album to print!”

Skylar then annotates Eminem’s lyrics:

“In that line “You make it all worth it / Baby doll, you’re perfect the way you are / Accidents happen,” Eminem seems to be revealing the fact that he is manipulating me. Like he knows he has this power over me and uses me like a pawn to take the fall for him. And maybe he doesn’t really love me… he just says all those nice things to keep controlling me… I don’t know for sure. You’ll have to ask him if that’s what he was going for but that’s how I interpret it, and I love it because it takes the song to an even more f**ked up place.”

Read full song annotations on Genius here and listen to “Kill For You” below:

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