Eminem has admitted that he overreacted at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards after he was mocked by a dog puppet.

Reports at the time claimed the rapper had trashed his dressing room after Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a regular on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, joked about his feud with dance producer Moby.

In his memoirs, The Way I Am, serialised in part by Entertainment Weekly, Eminem says he had been so busy touring that he was unaware of who the dog was.

"My natural reaction was 'Get the fuck out of my face',” he writes. “And that's when I kind of lost it and a half. I should have kept my composure."

"I threw a fit. There was a cooler with drinks in it, and I asked if anybody wanted to grab a water or something. Nobody did.

"So I picked up the cooler and threw it against the wall and kind of fucked up the whole room.

"What I actually got mad about was the most ridiculous thing in the world. A puppet."

As previously reported on Gigwise, Eminem confirmed last week that he will release his new studio album, 'Relapse', before the end of 2008.