The one thing DMX was allergic to: “But I love the taste of it”
DMX was an intense person, as his aggressive rapping style made perfectly clear. But this wasn’t just an act—many of the people who knew him for real have stories that paint a picture of quite how unusual he really was, even when he was offstage.
The actor Anthony Anderson, whose TV and film credits include Black-ish, Law & Order, and Transformers, is one such person to have known DMX before his death in 2021. Appearing on Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast in 2024, Anderson recalled one particularly odd story from his time with DMX—and it revealed quite a lot about the sort of person the late rapper had been.
Anderson and DMX had gone for a meal together at the American restaurant chain Red Lobster, and things, initially, were going great. “X ordered shrimp three ways,” Anderson remembered. “He ordered it broiled, fried, and sautéed. And he’s tearing it up. We’re having a good time at Red Lobster.”
But, then, things went wrong. Drastically wrong. About 20 minutes into their meal, DMX starts to choke—much to Anderson’s dismay. “I’m like, ‘Yo, X, what’s up dawg?’ He’s just like, ‘[choking noises] I’m allergic to shrimp.’”
The allergy duly did its work on DMX, but the rapper didn’t lose his cool. To the contrary, he refused to alter his behaviour in any way at all. “He starts breaking out in hives and shit,” recalled Anderson. “I’m like, ‘Yo, X, what the fuck?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, but I love the taste of it!’”
DMX enjoyed the taste of shrimp so much that he was literally willing to put himself through what sounds like a fairly intense allergic reaction. As Anderson told it, he was literally choking and breaking out in hives because of this allergy, but X didn’t care. He just loved shrimp too much.
But that’s not even the maddest part of the story. Not only did DMX willingly submit himself to this allergic reaction, he was then on the verge of taking some drastic—and, it seems reasonable to suggest, eye-wateringly stupid—action to relieve himself from it. “This motherfucker,” said Anderson, “grabbed the steak knife and he’s about to stick it in his ear to get an itch he can’t reach and I had to stop him!”
This meal, which, for 20 minutes, had been a perfectly lovely occasion for Anderson, had swiftly descended into farce, and now the actor was having to prevent DMX from literally sticking a knife in his own ear. “I’m like, ‘X, what the fuck?’” Anderson recalled. “He’s like, ‘I can’t get it!’”
DMX is credited with helping to popularise the horrorcore genre, and, if this story is anything to go by, it turns out that his affinity with horror came perfectly natural to him. It seems he had no qualms whatsoever about inflicting pain upon himself, all for the sake of a nice meal. It’s a strange story, but a revealing one.