I didn't know his Mom said that... pretty messed up.
Lyrically, he made everybody on that FOREVER song sound like beginners.
People shouldn't get on songs with him, lol... ask Jay Z.
Eminem's Mom Tells Her Side Of The Story In New Memoir
In 'My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,' Debbie Nelson says she was close to her son before his rise to fame.
By Gil Kaufman
For his entire career,
Eminem has reveled in his split personality, toggling between the more sensitive Marshall Mathers (his real name) and his mischievous alter egos, Eminem and Slim Shady. But in her upcoming memoir, "My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem," Debbie Nelson says she regrets keeping quiet as Em cultivated his public persona of a trailer dweller with a crazy welfare mom.
In the book, due out in November, Nelson attempts to set the record straight on her troubled relationship with her eldest son and includes never-before-seen lyrics and poems he wrote before his rise to fame. (Find out the latest on
Eminem's new album here.)
Nelson writes that she encouraged Eminem every step of the way on his career, even when the "skinny white dude" (as he referred to himself) was laughed off the stage and mocked by the Detroit MCs and DJs he tried so hard to impress. And though she was troubled by the things he said about her and his upbringing in public, he told her that the fouler he was, the more the audience loved him. In interviews, including one
with Kurt Loder in 1999, Eminem called his mother unreliable and claimed he raised his little brother mostly on his own.
"At first I went along with it for Marshall's sake — if I made one mistake as a mother, it was giving in to my eldest son's every whim," she says, noting that some relatives commented that mother and son were so close, it was as if the umbilical cord had never been cut. "He never knew his father, and I did all I could to make up for it. I wasn't happy when he made up a whole new life for himself — what mother wants to be known as a pill-popping alcoholic who lives on welfare? To tell the truth, I was heartbroken. The lies started coming thick and fast — and not just from Marshall. ... I think he's forgotten the good times we had, and this book is my way of setting the record straight."
Nelson depicts the young Marshall running around their house in a Batman cape, jumping off the sofa and crashing into her lap. Their home was full of music that the future MC would often mimic while watching himself in a mirror, and he filled notebooks with poetry and superhero sketches, she recalls. An entrepreneur by age 11, Marshall was charging other neighborhood kids a quarter to watch him breakdance.
She says he grew from a perfect baby who never cried to a troubled child with a temper who was terribly shy around strangers and other kids, preferring to play with his imaginary friend, Casper. People often referred to Em as a "monster," she says, recalling when he destroyed a store display and lay spread-eagle across an aisle screaming and when he pulled an old lady's hair and threw food around at a restaurant where his mother worked.
Because he was small, he was often bullied at school. When he was 9, he was beat so badly he lost consciousness and was hospitalized for four days for a cerebral hemorrhage and had to relearn how to tie his shoes and pour cereal in a bowl. When Em referred to the incident in the song "Brain Damage," his tormentor
DeAngelo Bailey tried to sue him for $1 million.
Nelson says Marshall clung to her when she dropped him off, often faking illnesses to get out of going to school and once smashing his arm through a glass door and cutting a main artery in his wrist in a panic when he thought she was leaving the house without him. He eventually made what she calls a miraculous recovery from his brain injury, but when doctors warned that another blow to the head could kill him, she made him wear a football helmet to play outside.
During his rise to fame with
The Slim Shady LP in 1999, Eminem was so strung out on drugs and alcohol that he later confessed to his mother that he couldn't recall much of anything about that year — not his hit singles, his concerts or even his first wedding to his on-and-off first love,
Kim Scott.
"No one prepares you for the downside of celebrity," she says. "There isn't a school for would-be stars and their families where you can learn about the pitfalls. Marshall says fame brought a slew of problems he never expected. He no longer trusts anyone. Everyone wants a piece of Eminem the megastar, not Marshall Mathers the man. I call these people the circling vultures: They spot dollar signs and swoop in for the kill."
It wasn't just Eminem who suffered. Fans would spit at his mother in supermarkets and stick gum in her hair, and their parents would sneer at her. She says the abuse mirrored what she endured in her own sad childhood and adulthood, which included physical abuse from her stepfather and mother, who also attempted suicide several times. At 15, she married Em's abusive, hard-drinking father and dropped out of school. She later suffered through three other marriages with abusive men, numerous acts of random violence against her and a car crash that left her vocal cords severely damaged and caused her weight to plummet below 80 pounds.
Nelson also chronicles the love-hate relationship between Eminem and twice ex-wife Kim, who came to live with the family when she was just 13 and quickly established an antagonistic relationship with Nelson. Constantly cursing at Nelson, Kim would frequently belittle Eminem's writing talents, his mother says, and friends would tease him about the iron hold Kim had on his emotions.
As Em's fame grew, with it came a barrage of lawsuits from the gnarled family tree. And though Eminem assured his mother that the image he painted of her as a drunk, pill-popping, lawsuit-happy woman was just a joke, eventually her lawyer filed an infamous
$11 million defamation suit against him. Nelson says, however, that the lawyer filed the suit without her permission. (She eventually was awarded $25,000, and after legal fees went home with only $1,600.)
As his marriage to Kim crumbled and those he thought he could trust betrayed him, Nelson says Em receded into a haze of drug abuse and cut his mother out of his increasingly hectic life.
"It's been said that Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, would have a field day dissecting my son," Nelson writes near the end of the book. "It's true. Marshall is a mass of contradictions — he's shy, suffers terrible stage fright, yet tours constantly and is among the most instantly recognizable people in the world. I believe he'd have been far happier writing lyrics and producing away from the spotlight. Sometimes I wish we hadn't moved back to Michigan in 1987, where he got involved with hard-core rap. If we'd stayed in Missouri, he'd have maybe worked on a farm or in a factory. I don't know if that would have made him happier, but I do know we would not be estranged."
Cut off from her son's life, Nelson says she worries he's turning into a kind of hip-hop Elvis, sequestered behind the gates of his home, depressed and separated from those who love him.
"As a mother, of course, I worry," she writes. "But I do truly believe that Marshall will be back. I'm sure he's biding his time, waiting for the right moment, and when he does return, he will be bigger and stronger and more successful than ever. I know my son, and he just doesn't give up that easily."
Reps for Eminem's label, Interscope, had no comment on the book.
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luvmichael commented | 09.20.2008 06:36 AM
i think another reason why debbie mathers wrote this book is because, once she got that settlement from em, i'm sure he had some type of agreement with her that she can't ever sue him again. and plus all she got was $1600! ha! but i don't buy that they had a close relationship, maybe when he was much younger, but not while he was trying to make it in music.
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noone3 commented | 09.20.2008 02:44 AM
I've always thought Mathers was setting a rather bad example for his child by speaking the way he does of his mother. My father went through hell when he was young. He lived in east l.a. with a welfare queen illegal alien mother who frequently ran off and left her children to fend for themselves. He does not disrespect her. He does not love her in the way i love my mother but he never speaks disrespectfully of her. I honestly don't believe many of the things Em spouts. I met him once, something stinks about that boy and it's not chanel no 5. I think he's a sexist pig and it influences all of his thinking. It's sad this man is raising a daughter and appears to have zero respect for women. Respect for women is at an all time low these days. The raunchy culture has won and it will be our young girls who bare the scars of being made to feel inferior everyday. Being made to feel their entire worth as a human being is in how good they look. You may say i am being judgmental but this man's actions speak louder then any of his platitudes toward females ever have. Sexism has to stop. Disrespect toward females has to stop. People out there take a stand-respect women.
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luvmichael commented | 09.19.2008 01:08 AM
but in britney's case, her mom started that book while she was still in rehab...and i think that's wrong. no wonder britney didn't speak to her for a good part of the year. well, we'll just have to see with this eminem book...but why did she wait so long to write it?
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Lil Wayne BEST_RAPPER_ALIVE 4 Eva!!! commented | 09.18.2008 10:16 PM
idk what to think, really cuz if what shes saying is true than she must b really hurt from all his lyrics and stuff and even like in the movie 8 mile they make her look like a crazy b*tch, but if shes just looking 4 money and attention then she can take her lil bs and go bak 2 where she came from.
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JMoney commented | 09.18.2008 08:44 PM
I think this is almost outragous. She goes out and says she loves him and everything but its trying to make money off of EM. Thats not her story to tell thats Em's story to tell to the world not hers but the sad thing is that everybody is going to go out and buy it because we love eminem so much. Who ever published this book that is coming out she be shot because its not her stuff to write about....
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MorgiiT commented | 09.18.2008 08:09 PM
She obviously isn't trying to trash him. Manmy people think he was horrible to her and hate him for it, she loves him and is just trying to find a way back to her son. You would do the same...
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jfaline commented | 09.18.2008 06:48 PM
Eminem's Mom is obviously looking for more money. remember when she released that rap cd in 2001? all she did was trash her son she supposedly cares about. If she really cared about her son she should quit trashing him!!!
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jb&weezyfan commented | 09.18.2008 05:53 PM
wow if what his mother said is true...i dont feel bad for him as i used to before. cause i used to think his lyrics where touching and i felt bad cause hes mom was an alchoholic. also is funny ppl say em writes about his "real" life probalems. hahaha. just wait till they see this...would they keep saying the same thing? lol.
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TBurnum replied | 09.22.2009 05:25 PM
Don't believe this. Do a little more research and you will find that she is a terrible alcoholic abusive mother.
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Leon Doyle Is GOD commented | 09.18.2008 05:21 PM
Good for Em's mother. He has slammed her long enough. Right or wrong, she squeezed him out, let her make a buck off him.
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MORENA commented | 09.18.2008 04:16 PM
MONEY CHANGES PPL
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mmmc commented | 09.18.2008 02:42 PM
yo yo, i is true, i is real, i is honest, i is commit suicide. yo yo i is gots game, i is not a playa hata, i is sing at nelson mandela birthday party. yo check it i is gots these neo nazis if yalls is hatin yo yo, theys is black so ize is hope theys dont kill one another.
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ShutIt commented | 09.18.2008 02:40 PM
Wow tydes30, all of a sudden you have the inside scoop, huh? What's funny is your hypocritical statement: "damn everytime I get on here its something stupid being said by people who know nothing." ATTENTION EVERYONE!!! Everybody knows nothing, but tydes30, that dude knows exactly the relationship between Em and his mother because he reads tabloids like Mtv.com and believes it like the sheep he is. Sounds like the epitome of something stupid being said by someone who knows nothing to me. Another stupid comment made by our knowledgeable tydes30: "how can it be a publicity stunt for eminem when hes album isnt being released until sometime next year" Yeah, it can't be a publicity stunt because coming out with a cd AFTER his mom writes a book wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. Give me a break. The spotlight gets put on him because of this, not his mother, you moron. Look at the picture in the article, is it a picture of his mother? Is this article posted in "Mothers Weekly?" Did you read this article because you are a fan of his Mom? Who's getting the most publicity him or his mother? Apparently you haven't grasped too many straws in your day to even know how to spell let alone look logically at marketing tactics. I love how morons like you can't see the obvious and think others "grasp at straws." Get a clue. You are a sheep just like the millions of others that take stuff at face value and think you have the all the answers because of it. Grow up, get a clue, and stop being naive.
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mmmc commented | 09.18.2008 02:33 PM
yo man, this what my moms got to say, hey ize went retarded and started talking about nazis and gettin that bread son, this is america, i is real
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damianx commented | 09.18.2008 02:22 PM
nobody's perfect. neither em or his mom. There's 2 sides to a story and we know Eminem ain't no flawless angel.
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tydes30 commented | 09.18.2008 01:39 PM
damn everytime I get on here its something stupid being said by people who know nothing....how can it be a publicity stunt for eminem when hes album isnt being released until sometime next year....you morons are grasping at straws to sound intelligent...em doesnt even talk to his mom...so its all about her and lining her pockets...it has nothing to do with him
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ShutIt commented | 09.18.2008 01:24 PM
Like keyona said below... Publicity stunt. Do the math and it's pretty obvious. He has been out of the spotlight for a while and he decides to do another album. What a great way to come up with material than to have is Mom write a book and his album be a response to the allegations. A great way to add fuel to the fire and give him something to rap about if you ask me. Marshall Mathers LP went through the roof because of the hot topics he discussed. He knows this, Dre knows this, and his mother knows this. She makes loot off the book and he sells platinum, Dre makes his, and the record label is set. It's a win/win situation for everyone involved. The tracks about the topic were already written probably before she even wrote the book. It's genius and kids will eat it up. Sheep.
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keyona commented | 09.18.2008 12:53 PM
No wonder the poor man stayed out of the lime light all this mess is starting back up.But what I find strange and it seems like nobody has seem to catch on was that.His mother comes out with a so-call tell all book around the same time he announces he is about to release a new album.Like they say all publicity is good publicity.Especially when it comes to these 2.His fans hate her so they buy his album and then there are the curious fans that will buy her book just to see.Meanwhile son and mother is laughing all the way to the bank.Good job way to get your name back out there circling again.
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edi commented | 09.18.2008 12:02 PM
How much does the book publisher pay for front page articles like this one?
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Horror-Code commented | 09.18.2008 11:57 AM
People have obviously already read our comments, much faster than they are deleted. If its that big of an issue, lock the topic! Honestly, wheres freedom of speech here? Okay, so its okay for her to defame his character, along with, obviously, the editor of the story? Are you all that blind? Yes, he'll sue, he has every reason to. I'll be waiting to see the so called "proof" of her claims... Wow, MTV, fully censored, on the web...
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