Eminem - Personal life - Encyclopedia II

Marshall was born in St. Joseph, MO (near Kansas City) to parents Deborah "Debbie" Mathers-Briggs and Marshall Bruce Mathers II, and spent most of his childhood moving back and forth between Kansas City, Detroit and its suburbs, including Warren. His father had abandoned the family before Marshall turned two years old, and the two have not had contact since, save some rejected attempts by Marshall's father to contact Marshall after his rise to fame. Incessantly moving from home to home, he frequently changed schools, often finding himself to be an outcast in the new communities, and frequently fell victim to bullying. An assault by schoolmate DeAngelo Bailey that left Marshall hospitalized was the most notable such incident, which Marshall would later recount in greatly exaggerated form on the track Brain Damage (The Slim Shady LP, 1999). The song prompted legal action by the assailant[1], with accusations of libel and privacy infringement, which were eventually dismissed in court[2].

His childhood was further marred by his family's meager financial status, which was the primary reason for the continuous moving, during which Marshall and his mother Debbie would often find themselves living in public housing, mobile homes, and under the care of relatives, such as Marshall's great-aunt Edna, whom he mentions in Evil Deeds (Encore, 2004). During this time, Debbie was legally taking the prescription drugs Vicodin and Valium, though Marshall later claimed in numerous interviews and songs that she was abusing the drugs [3], to which Debbie retaliated with a lawsuit pressing defamation charges (see below). In the song Cleaning Out My Closet (The Eminem Show, 2002), Marshall also accuses Debbie of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy, adding that "my whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't ... it makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it?". This was not the first time someone suggested Debbie had the disorder, as a social worker had made similar comments following a 1996 investigation of her mistreatment of Nathan Samra-Mathers, her second child, who is 14 years younger than Marshall.

Before dropping out of Lincoln High School Warren as a 9th grader at the age of 17 (after failing ninth grade three times), Marshall made a number of significant acquaintances at the school. This included fellow rapper Proof, who was to become one of his closest friends, the Runyon Avenue Soldiers, and future wife Kimberly Ann "Kim" Scott, with whom he soon developed a long-term relationship. When Kim became pregnant, this further increased Marshall's drive to succeed through concern over the welfare of his new family. He discusses this in Never 2 Far (Infinite, 1996), saying "I got a baby on the way, I don't even got a car...I still stay with my moms...we gotta make some hit records or something [because] I'm tired of being broke..." When the Infinite album failed to generate the revenue and acclaim he had hoped for, and Kim ended their relationship, preventing him from seeing his newborn child, Marshall decided to take his own life. However, his suicide attempt using an overdose of Tylenol analgesics failed, and Marshall resumed his efforts to succeed in the music industry and reconcile with Kim[4]. He ultimately succeeded in doing both, marrying Kim on June 14, 1999 in St. Joseph, MO.

The couple's daughter, Hailie Jade Scott, born December 25, 1995 would grow to become an important part of Marshall's life, as he became dedicated to giving her everything he himself was deprived of in his childhood, including a father figure and financial security. He would go on to mention her extensively in some of his songs, including '97 Bonnie & Clyde (The Slim Shady LP, 1999), which takes the form of a one-sided dialogue with Hailie, as well as Hailie's Song (The Eminem Show, 2002), Mockingbird (Encore, 2004), and When I'm Gone (Curtain Call: The Hits, 2005), all of which are proclamations of his love and dedication to her. In addition, he samples her voice in the less serious upbeat track My Dad's Gone Crazy (The Eminem Show, 2002).

The year 1999 was marked by a rise to celebrity status for Marshall, but it also ushered the beginning of his numerous legal troubles. The first of these was his mother Debbie's lawsuit against him in September of that year. The lawsuit was motivated by comments on Debbie's drug use made by Marshall on the song My Name Is (The Slim Shady LP, 1999), specifically the lyric "Ninety-nine percent of my life I was lied to/I just found out my mom does more dope than I do", and similar accusations in numerous interviews. Debbie refuted the statements and demanded more than $10 million in damages for defamation in two lawsuits. After rumors of Debbie dropping the suit, she and Marshall reached a settlement in 2001 for $25,000, with over $23,000 of it going to Debbie's former attorney Fred Gibson by a court order[5]. A request for reconsideration of the settlement by Debbie was denied by a judge[6]. Marshall's resentful reflections on the case can be heard on the song Marshall Mathers (The Marshall Mathers LP, 2000) in the lyrics "my fuckin' bitch mom is suing for 10 million/ she must want a dollar for every pill I've been stealin'" and the self-censored line "your attorney Fred Gibson's a faggot".

With Marshall's rise to stardom, new disputes arose between him and his wife, centered around Kim's dissatisfaction over the graphic fictional account of Marshall murdering her and dumping her body in a lake in the songs '97 Bonnie & Clyde (The Slim Shady LP, 1999) and Kim (The Marshall Mathers LP, 2000). The tension between the couple came to a climax when Marshall witnessed Kim kissing another man, one John Guerrera, outside the Hot Rocks Café in Warren on June 4, 2000. Highly disgruntled, Marshall threatened John with an unloaded 9 mm semi-automatic gun and proceeded to pistol-whip him[7]. Guerrera is name-checked on Sing For The Moment on The Eminem Show, with the exact lyric being "you're full of shit too, Guerrera, that was a fist that hit you!" In addition, it was soon revealed that the previous day, Marshall was involved in a heated dispute in Red Oak, Michigan with Douglas Dail, an associate of the rap group Insane Clown Posse, with whom Marshall had an ongoing rivalry. On the Marshall Mathers LP, on the track "Marshall Mathers," Eminem calls ICP's Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent Jay "Faggot 2 Dope," and "Silent Gay." Furthermore, the Ken Kaniff skit on this album features the eponymous character (played by Eminem) being fellated by the ICP pair. During the confrontation, Marshall was observed to be holding a gun, which he kept pointed at the ground[8]. Being taken into police custody during the Hot Rocks Café incident, Marshall was charged with misdemeanor charges of brandishing a firearm in public, assault with a dangerous weapon, and two counts of concealed weapon possession, in two separate trials for the two incidents. After a plea bargain in the John Guerrera case, which concluded on April 10, 2001, Marshall pleaded guilty to weapon possession in exchange for the assault charges being dropped, receiving two years of probation [9], and was ordered to pay $100,000 in damages at the conclusion of the case evaluation in 2002 [10]. In the Dail case, he pleaded nolo contendere to the charges of firearm possession and brandishing, receiving one year of probation, enforced concurrently with the sentence from the first case. [11]. He would later recount the former incident in the song Soldier (The Eminem Show, 2002) and the preceding interlude The Kiss.

While the trials were in the beginning stages, things were only getting worse for Marshall, when on July 7, 2000, Kim attempted suicide in the couple's Sterling Heights, Michigan home by cutting her wrists. Marshall talks about this incident from Hailie's point of view in the song "When I'm Gone" from the CD Curtain Call - The Hits [12]. This prompted Marshall to file for divorce a few months later[13], which was promptly countered by Kim with a lawsuit that sought to deny Marshall custody of their daughter and $10 million in defamation damages[14]. Within weeks, however, they settled the lawsuit, and agreed to joint custody of their daughter, with Kim gaining physical custody of Hailie, granting Marshall "liberal visitation rights"[15]. By the end of the year, the couple reconciled, agreeing to dismiss divorce claims and live together [16]. Marshall mentions [Kim's] suicide attempt and the Hot Rocks Café incident on the Xzibit song Don't Approach Me (Restless, 2000), criticizing the amount of media coverage of the events and the public attention to his life in general.

The reconciliation, however, would not last, as Kim filed for divorce in 2001, which was finalized in October of that year, granting joint physical and legal custody of Hailie to both parties, as well as requiring Marshall to make child support payments [17]. There was further turbulence in their relationship when Kim was sentenced to 2 years of probation for felony cocaine possession in 2003. This was not her first such incident, as she had previously faced similar charges in 2001, although they were eventually dropped[18]. The incident was not to be her last, however, as she was sentenced to 30 days in jail in 2004, after failing a drug test for cocaine while still on probation[19]. Marshall makes numerous references to Kim's cocaine use on the Encore album, including the quotes "you're a fucking cokehead slut" and "mama developed a habit" in the songs Puke and Mockingbird respectively. Their relationship since their divorce was subject to many contradictive rumors and statements in Marshall's music and remained in an indecisive "on-again, off-again" state for a long time.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Personal life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page