He was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri. A white kid from a trailer park who walked into a Black art form and conquered it so completely that the only comparison anyone could find was Elvis Presley. But Elvis didn’t have to battle rap his way out of Detroit. Elvis didn’t have to prove himself every single second of every single day.

Eminem is one of the most successful musical artists of the 21st century. Fifteen Grammys. An Academy Award. Ten number one albums on the Billboard 200—every single one of them debuting at the top, making him the only artist in history to achieve that. Seventeen Billboard Music Awards. Eight American Music Awards. A Global Icon Award from MTV.

But none of that matters if you don’t understand where he came from.

 

His father, Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr., left when Eminem was an infant. He moved to California, started another family, and never looked back. As a teenager, Eminem wrote letters to his father. His mother, Debbie, said every single one came back marked “return to sender.”

He and his mother shuttled between Michigan and Missouri, rarely staying in one house for more than a year or two. They lived with relatives. They lived in St. Joseph, Savannah, Kansas City. Eventually, they landed on 8 Mile Road in Detroit—a working-class, predominantly Black neighborhood where he and his mother were one of only three white families on their block.

He was beaten up by Black kids several times. One bully, D’Angelo Bailey, injured his head so severely that Debbie filed a lawsuit against the school in 1982. It was dismissed. The judge said schools were immune from such lawsuits.

“You get lucky, you have a first love like that,” Eminem would later say about other things. But his first love wasn’t a person. It was words.

 

As a child, he wanted to be a comic book artist. He loved storytelling. Then he heard his first rap song—”Reckless” featuring Ice-T on the Breakin’ soundtrack. It was a gift from his uncle Ronnie Polkinghorn, his mother’s half-brother, who became his musical mentor.

When Ronnie committed suicide in 1991, Eminem stopped speaking for days. He didn’t attend the funeral.

His home life was never stable. He fought constantly with his mother. A social worker described her as having “a very suspicious, almost paranoid personality.” When Debbie later wrote a book about her son, she dismissed suggestions that she was anything less than an ideal mother. She said she sheltered him. She said she was responsible for his success.

But the facts tell a different story.

Eminem spent three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades. He dropped out of Lincoln High School at seventeen. He worked at multiple jobs to help his mother pay the bills—and she still threw him out of the house, often after taking most of his paycheck.

When she left to play bingo, he would blast the stereo and write songs.

 

At fourteen, he started rapping with a high school friend named Mike Ruby. They called themselves Manix and M&M—the latter eventually became Eminem. He snuck into neighboring Osborne High School with his friend Proof for lunchroom freestyle battles on Saturdays. They attended open mic contests at the Hip Hop Shop on West 7 Mile Road—considered ground zero for the Detroit rap scene.

He struggled to succeed in a predominantly Black industry. But underground hip hop audiences appreciated him. When he wrote verses, he wanted most of the words to rhyme. He would write long words or phrases on paper and work out rhymes for each syllable underneath. The words often made little sense. But the drill helped him practice sounds and rhymes.

He met Kim Scott in high school while standing on a table with his shirt off, rapping LL Cool J’s “I’m Bad.” Kim and her twin sister Dawn had run away from home. They moved in with Eminem and his mother when he was fifteen. He began an on-again, off-again relationship with Kim in 1989.

Their daughter Hailie was born on December 25, 1995.

He was twenty-three years old, broke, and desperate.

 

In 1996, Eminem released his debut album, Infinite, on the independent Web Entertainment label. It was a commercial failure. Detroit disc jockeys largely ignored it. The feedback he did receive was brutal: “Why don’t you go into rock and roll?”

One lyrical subject of Infinite was his struggle to raise his newborn daughter on little money. But the album’s failure pushed him into a darker place. He and Kim lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Their house was robbed multiple times. Eminem cooked and washed dishes for minimum wage at Gilbert’s Lodge, a family-style restaurant in St. Clair Shores.

His former boss said he became a model employee—working sixty hours a week for six months after Hailie’s birth. Then he was fired shortly before Christmas.

“Five days before Christmas,” he later said. “Which is Hailie’s birthday. I had like forty dollars to get her something.”

After Infinite failed, his personal problems and substance abuse culminated in a suicide attempt.

By March 1997, he was fired from Gilbert’s Lodge for the last time. He lived in his mother’s mobile home with Kim and Hailie.

That’s when he created Slim Shady.

 

Slim Shady was a sadistic, violent alter ego—a character that allowed Eminem to express his anger through lyrics about drugs, rape, and murder. In the spring of 1997, he recorded the Slim Shady EP.

The EP referenced drug use, sexual acts, mental instability, and violence. But it also explored more serious themes: poverty, marital difficulties, family trauma. It revealed his direct, self-deprecating response to criticism.

Hip hop magazine The Source featured Eminem in its “Unsigned Hype” column in March 1998. That same year, after being evicted from his home, he went to Los Angeles to compete in the Rap Olympics—an annual nationwide battle rap competition.

He placed second.

An Interscope Records staff member in attendance sent a copy of the Slim Shady EP to CEO Jimmy Iovine. Iovine played it for Dr. Dre.

“In my entire career in the music industry,” Dre later recalled, “I have never found anything from a demo tape or a CD. When Jimmy played this, I said, ‘Find him. Now.’”

Dre’s associates criticized him for hiring a white rapper. He didn’t care. Eminem had idolized Dre since listening to N.W.A as a teenager. He was nervous about working with him. But after a series of productive recording sessions, he became more comfortable.

The Slim Shady LP was released in February 1999. It was one of the year’s most popular albums, certified triple platinum by the end of the year. But the success came with controversy.

 

“97 Bonnie and Clyde” described a trip with his infant daughter while disposing of his wife’s body. “Guilty Conscience” encouraged a man to murder his wife and her lover. The album’s popularity was accompanied by outrage. But it also marked the beginning of a friendship and musical bond between Dre and Eminem that would define hip hop for the next two decades.

The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. It sold 1.76 million copies in its first week—breaking US records held by Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle for fastest-selling hip hop album and Britney Spears’s Baby One More Time for fastest-selling solo album.

The first single, “The Real Slim Shady,” was a success despite the controversies over Eminem’s insults and dubious claims about celebrities. The second single, “The Way I Am,” revealed the pressure from his record company to top “My Name Is.”

Then came “Stan.”

In the third single, Eminem assumed the persona of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend. The song has since been ranked 296th on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. The Marshall Mathers LP was certified diamond by the RIAA in March 2011 and sold twenty-one million copies worldwide.

In July 2000, Eminem became the first white artist to appear on the cover of The Source.

 

At the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2001, Eminem performed “Stan” with Elton John. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation—GLAAD—which had condemned Eminem’s lyrics as homophobic, protested outside the Staples Center. But the performance happened anyway. Entertainment Weekly later placed it on its end-of-decade “best of” list.

“Eminem, under fire for homophobic lyrics, shared the stage with a gay icon,” they wrote. “The performance would have been memorable in any context.”

The Eminem Show was released in May 2002. It sold 1.332 million copies in its first full week, reached number one, and became the bestselling album of 2002 worldwide. The single “Without Me” denigrated boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Dick Cheney, Moby, and others. The album examined the effects of Eminem’s rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter, and his status in the hip hop community.

It also addressed an assault charge brought by a bouncer he had seen kissing his wife in 2000.

On December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service announced it was investigating allegations that Eminem had threatened President George W. Bush. The cause for concern was the lyrics of “We As Americans,” which was later released on a bonus CD with the deluxe edition of Encore.

The song called Bush “this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president.”

 

Encore was released in 2004. Its sales were partially driven by the first single, “Just Lose It,” which contained slurs about Michael Jackson. A week after the single’s release, Jackson phoned a Los Angeles radio show to report his displeasure with the video, which parodied Jackson’s child molestation trial, his plastic surgery, and the 1984 incident when Jackson’s hair caught fire during a commercial shoot.

Stevie Wonder spoke out against the video, calling it “kicking a man while he’s down.” “Weird Al” Yankovic—who had parodied Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” as “Couch Potato” for his 2003 album Poodle Hat—told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my ‘Lose Yourself’ parody because he somehow thought it would be harmful to his image or career. The irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me.”

Despite the controversies, Encore was another commercial success. But fans and critics were disappointed. The album was widely considered lackluster. And Eminem was struggling with something far more dangerous than bad reviews.

 

During the production of 8 Mile—the quasi-autobiographical film that would win the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself,” making him the first hip hop artist to ever win an Oscar—Eminem worked sixteen-hour days. He developed insomnia.

An associate gave him an Ambien tablet. It knocked him out. He got a prescription.

That was the beginning.

Near the end of production on Encore, he would go into the studio with a pocket full of pills. He began taking the drugs just to feel normal. He took a ridiculous amount. The drugs would put him to sleep for no more than two hours, after which he would take more.

His weight increased to 230 pounds. He was regularly eating fast food. He became less recognizable. He once overheard two teenagers arguing about whether or not it was him.

In December 2007, Eminem was hospitalized after a methadone overdose. He had collapsed in his bathroom and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors told him he had ingested the equivalent of four bags of heroin and was about two hours from dying.

Two hours.

He missed Christmas with his children. He checked himself out of the facility weak and not fully detoxed. He tore the meniscus in his knee after falling asleep on his sofa, requiring surgery. After he returned home, he had a seizure.

Within a month, his drug use ramped right back to where it was before.

 

He tried church meetings to get clean. But when he was asked for autographs, he realized anonymity was impossible. He sought help from a rehabilitation counselor. He began an exercise program that emphasized running.

Elton John—the same Elton John who had performed “Stan” with him at the Grammys—became a mentor during this period. He called Eminem once a week to check on him.

In the book My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, his mother stated that he has struggled with bipolar disorder throughout his life. She said it worsened after Kim gave birth to Hailie.

On April 20, 2019, Eminem announced he was eleven years sober.

But before sobriety came one of the darkest periods of his life.

 

In 2006, his childhood friend Proof was murdered. Proof was the one who had snuck into Osborne High School with him for lunchroom battles. Proof was the one who had believed in him when no one else did.

Eminem was devastated.

In September 2007, he called a New York radio station during an interview with 50 Cent. He said he was “in limbo,” debating when or if he would release another album.

Then came Relapse in 2009. It didn’t sell as well as his previous albums. Critics were mixed. But it reestablished his presence in the hip hop world, selling more than five million copies worldwide.

During the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen descended on the audience in an angel costume. He landed butt-first on Eminem, who stormed out of the ceremony. Three days later, Eminem admitted the stunt had been staged.

Recovery was released in 2010. It sold 741,000 copies in its first week—Eminem’s sixth consecutive US number one album. It remained at the top of the Billboard 200 for five consecutive weeks out of a seven-week total. Billboard reported it was the bestselling album of 2010, making Eminem the first artist in Nielsen SoundScan history with two year-end best-selling albums (The Eminem Show in 2002 and Recovery in 2010).

Recovery is the bestselling digital album in history.

Its first single, “Not Afraid,” debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. “Love the Way You Lie” followed. Both songs were later certified diamond by the RIAA—making Eminem the first artist with two, then three, digital diamond certified songs in the United States.

 

In March 2011, within days of each other, The Eminem Show and The Marshall Mathers LP were certified diamond by the RIAA. Eminem is the only rapper with two diamond-certified albums.

With more than sixty million likes, he was the most followed person on Facebook—outscoring Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Michael Jackson.

The Marshall Mathers LP 2 was released in November 2013. It was Eminem’s seventh album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. He became the first artist since the Beatles to have four singles in the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart—making him the first American artist with seven consecutive UK number one albums. He is tied with the Beatles for second place for the most consecutive chart-topping UK albums.

On November 3, 2013, Eminem was named the first YouTube Music Awards Artist of the Year. A week later, he received the Global Icon Award at the MTV EMA Music Awards.

In 2018, he released Kamikaze—a surprise album, his tenth studio album, dropped without warning. It topped the Billboard 200, making it his ninth album in a row to do so. It sold 434,000 units in its first week.

On January 17, 2020, he released another surprise album: Music to Be Murdered By.

 

Eminem has been married twice to Kim Scott. They married in 1999, divorced in 2001, briefly remarried in January 2006, and filed for divorce again that April. He has custody of Hailie, as well as Dawn’s daughter Alaina and Kim’s daughter Whitney from another relationship.

In his 2014 song “Headlights,” Eminem apologized to his mother and reiterated his love for her.

“My mom probably is the most strong person I’ve ever met,” he said in an interview. “She’s been through a lot.”

But the apologies came late. The lawsuits came first. In 1999, Debbie sued him for $10 million, claiming he was slandering her on The Slim Shady LP. Litigation concluded in 2001, resulting in an award of $1,600 for her damages.

On June 3, 2000, Eminem was arrested during an altercation at a car audio store in Royal Oak, Michigan, when he pulled out an unloaded gun and pointed it at the ground. The next day, he was arrested again for assaulting a man he saw kissing his wife. He pleaded guilty to possession of a concealed weapon and assault and received two years’ probation.

On July 7, 2000, Kim attempted suicide by slashing her wrists. She later sued Eminem for defamation after he described her violent death in the song “Kim.”

 

In 2001, sanitation worker D’Angelo Bailey sued Eminem for $1 million, accusing him of invading his privacy in “Brain Damage,” a song that portrayed Bailey as a violent school bully. Bailey admitted picking on Eminem in school but said he merely “bumped him and gave him a little shove.”

The lawsuit was dismissed on October 20, 2003. Judge Deborah Servitto—who wrote a portion of her opinion in rap-like rhyming verse—ruled that it was clear to the public that the lyrics were exaggerated.

In 2018 and 2019, the Secret Service interviewed Eminem again regarding threatening lyrics toward President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka.

In February 2017, on a track from Big Sean’s album I Decided, Eminem called Trump a “racist grandpa” and rapped about violent acts against a conservative commentator. The commentator responded: “I think it’s unfortunate that the left—from Berkeley to Eminem—has normalized violence against women.”

 

Eminem is widely considered one of the greatest hip hop artists of all time. He was 83rd on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list. He was the bestselling artist from 2000 to 2009 in the United States, selling 47.4 million albums. With global sales of over 170 million records, he is one of the world’s bestselling artists of all time.

He has over ten billion views of his music videos on his YouTube Vevo page. In 2010, his music generated ninety-four million streams—more than any other musical artist. In May 2014, Spotify called him the most streamed artist of all time.

In August 2011, Rolling Stone called him the “King of Hip Hop,” analyzing album sales, chart positions, YouTube views, social media, concert grosses, industry awards, and critical ratings of solo rappers who released music from 2009 to the first half of 2011.

His song “Stan” has become a cultural milestone. The term “stan” has entered the dictionary—meaning an obsessive fan.

 

But here is what the numbers don’t show.

They don’t show the boy who wrote letters to a father who never wrote back. They don’t show the teenager who was beaten up for being white in a Black neighborhood. They don’t show the young father who had forty dollars to buy his daughter a Christmas present. They don’t show the man who was two hours away from dying from a methadone overdose.

They don’t show the friend who lost Proof to violence and couldn’t speak for days.

Eminem has been called misogynistic, homophobic, violent, and dangerous. He has been sued, protested, investigated by the Secret Service, and banned from countries. He has been compared to Elvis Presley—a white artist who made a Black art form palatable to white audiences—and he has resented every single comparison.

He has also been called one of the greatest lyricists in the history of music. He has been praised for his verbal energy, his complex rhyme schemes, his ability to bend words so they rhyme when they shouldn’t. He writes most of his lyrics on paper—taking days or weeks to craft verses, stacking vocals, perfecting every syllable.

“When he wrote verses, he wanted most of the words to rhyme.”

That sentence, from an early profile, captures everything. He wanted most of the words to rhyme. Not some. Not many. Most. He wanted language to bend to his will. He wanted to take the English language and twist it until it did exactly what he needed it to do.

 

He has developed other ventures: Shady Records with manager Paul Rosenberg, which launched the careers of 50 Cent, Yelawolf, and Obie Trice. Shade 45 on SiriusXM radio. A film career that began with 8 Mile and included cameos in The Wash, Funny People, The Interview, and Entourage.

He has published two books: Angry Blonde in 2000 and his autobiography The Way I Am in 2008, which detailed his struggles with poverty, drugs, fame, heartbreak, and depression.

He has been married, divorced, remarried, and divorced again. He has been to rehab. He has been to the brink of death and back. He has lost his best friend. He has made peace with his mother. He has watched his daughter grow up and start her own life.

And through all of it, he has kept rapping.

 

The famous quote from Dr. Dre: “I have never found anything from a demo tape or a CD. When Jimmy played this, I said, ‘Find him. Now.’”

That moment changed everything. But it didn’t change who Eminem was. He was still the kid from the trailer park. He was still the white boy who had to prove himself in a Black art form. He was still the father who had forty dollars to his name on his daughter’s birthday.

He just had a platform now.

And he used it to become the most feared rapper alive.

Not because he was the biggest. Not because he was the richest. Because he was the best with words. Because he could take language and weaponize it in ways that no one else could. Because when he stepped into a cypher, other rappers stepped back.

He is Marshall Mathers. He is Slim Shady. He is Eminem.

He is the most feared rapper alive.

And he earned every single bit of it.

 

On February 9, 2020, at the 92nd Academy Awards, Eminem performed “Lose Yourself.” The song had won the Oscar for Best Original Song eighteen years earlier—making him the first hip hop artist to ever win the award. But he had never performed it at the ceremony.

So he showed up. Unannounced. And he performed it.

The crowd—actors, directors, producers, Hollywood royalty—went silent. Then they went wild.

Because that’s what Eminem does. He shows up when no one expects him. He says what no one else will say. He raps in ways that no one else can rap.

He is the most feared rapper alive.

And he is still standing.