Marshall got a mention in Source magazine’s “Unsigned Hype” column. The skinny white kid had conquered his critics on the Detroit music scene and now he was one of their star freestyle rappers. The radio station disc jockeys who had once laughed at him now invited him to perform on air.
He’d also created a new alter ego. Slim Shady was a comic antihero who inflicted violence on all the people who’d annoyed Marshall in the past. This, he told me, included school bullies, Kim, and the people who’d sneered at his Infinite album.
“It’s a big joke, Mom,” he assured me. “The songs are funny. They aren’t meant to be taken seriously.”
Detroit producers Mark and Jeff Bass had believed in Marshall when no one else did. He’d recorded Infinite in their studio, and at the beginning of 1997, he was back there again, recording The Slim Shady EP.
Suddenly there was a buzz about Marshall, or should I say Eminem and Slim Shady? He was still flat broke, struggling to support Hailie, and battling constantly with Kim. But on the Detroit rap scene, he was famous.
He flew to Los Angeles to take part in the Rap Olympics, where he came in second out of fifty contestants. He performed live on an influential radio program called The Wake-Up Show. Not long afterwards he was named as the Wake Up Show’s freestyle performer of the year. Along the way, Marshall caught the attention of Dr Dre.
He came back from L.A. all excited, talking nonstop. I took a phone call from Dre. As I handed the phone to Marshall, he high-fived me, covered the receiver with one hand, then punched the air, mouthing, “Yes, yes!”
Dre helped form NWA—originally known as Niggaz With Attitude—in the late 1980s. Their album Straight Outta Compton was one of Marshall’s favorites. At seventeen he’d wanted to be Dre—lip-synching in sunglasses in front of the bedroom mirror! Dre quit NWA to produce for Death Row Records. When he left to start his own label, Aftermath, I predicted he’d be a perfect match for Marshall. Dre was keen to discover unsigned new acts.
Now, finally, Marshall was getting the big break I knew he deserved after years of rejection. In January 1998, he signed with Aftermath and went straight into Dre’s Los Angeles recording studio. He phoned to talk to me, Hailie, and Nate every other night. He knew that when Hailie was there she was in good hands—we had so much fun, going to Chuck E. Cheese’s, Fun House Pizza, and bumper-bowling.
Marshall was full of excitement, telling me about the people he’d met, the lyrics he’d recorded, and his plans for a national tour. He finished every conversation, as he always did, by telling me he loved me and that he couldn’t wait to get back to see his baby girl, Nan, and the rest of us.
When Marshall returned home almost a month later, his language was foul, and he’d invented another new persona for himself. He said he had to prove himself to the hip-hop industry because of his color. He was constantly fighting against prejudice from people who wrongly assumed that he was rich and born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
I found fifteen to twenty pills on his bedroom floor. He told me they were aspirin. I was worried Hailie or the dog would swallow them, so I flushed them down the toilet. He went berserk when he woke up. The pills were Vicodin, really strong painkillers.
He’d had problems sleeping; he said the pills helped.
Kim was back on the scene again. Marshall was no longer “a useless nobody,” as she had called him. He was on his way to becoming a rap star. She was now a looming presence at his concerts; she loved the fame and glamour. I was told she also fed him pills to calm his stage fright.
When Marshall wasn’t on the road, he was rapping in Detroit. But he didn’t forget his old friends. I still have a hand-drawn poster he did for an outdoor concert, featuring Proof, Da Klinic, and Mass Hysteria, on July 25, 1998.
He didn’t play me any of his Slim Shady songs. But as far as I knew they weren’t offensive—he needed radio airplay. The lyric sheets he left lying around usually mentioned Hailie, although one dealt with a pill overdose, noting he was “scared of losin’ everything I got.” He was almost twenty-six, still living at home, and the thing he feared losing most of all was his daughter.
After years of being alone, I’d fallen in love again. John Briggs was about to become husband number four. Everyone loved John, except Marshall.
When I tried to introduce them, Marshall said, “Keep that son of a bitch away from me.”
He was furious when John and I decided to make a fresh start in Saint Joseph.
“If you leave you’ll miss out on Hailie,” he said.
I told him not to be silly, that I’d be back to visit all the time.
“You’ll regret it. I’ll never speak to you again if you go back to Saint Joe,” he said.
“Why? What’s the problem?” I asked.
“You can forget about me,” he warned. “I don’t like the creep.”
Marshall wanted me to stay in Casco Township. He loved the area the house was in and was very comfortable with all of us there—it was very nice.
I talked to Nan, who was in ailing health. She encouraged me to move. Nan would come to Missouri in a few months. Meanwhile, she wanted to go back to her home in Warren, where Todd was living. Nathan also was happier in Missouri. I tried to explain all this to Marshall, but he still wasn’t happy.
“Son, you have your life now,” I said. “You have Hailie and Kim. Your career is about to take off. Please let me have a life too.”
“You have a life here with me, Nathan, Hailie, and Nan,” he said.
In the end we agreed that he could keep the house—once again Kim promised to pay the bills and make the mortgage repayments. I left all the utilities in my name and started making preparations to move back to Saint Joe.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was crazy about John Briggs. He was tall, just like Marshall’s father, Bruce, two years younger than I was, and incredibly handsome. I was leery about marrying again, but I’d been on my own for so long, and I loved his company.
He’d been married twice before—and was still friends with his last ex-wife. Nan and Nathan really liked John; even our dog liked him.
We bought a house together in Saint Joe. It was a cute two-bedroom cottage with a good half-acre of land at the back. I wanted to wait a while before we married, but John was keen to tie the knot sooner rather than later.
It was just before Thanksgiving, and Sharon Spiegel, the minister at the South Park Christian Academy and Church, where my brother Ronnie had gone to school, agreed to officiate.
The ceremony was at Sharon’s home with just my sister Tanya, my mother and her latest husband, Dutch, in attendance. It was very low-key, although I did wear a long blue sleeveless gown. I’d always used the name Mathers for Marshall’s sake, but John wanted me to take his surname. We compromised, and I became Mrs. Mathers-Briggs.
Soon my limo service took off in Saint Joseph. I knew the business from my previous company years before in Michigan. I purchased a Lincoln limo and started a new company. I had previously met Bill Hill, an old friend who ran a cab company and for whom my aunt worked, so I also helped out as a dispatcher for him. I introduced him to Kim and Marshall, and he catered to their every need, driving them wherever they pleased and refusing to take even a dime from my son. It was spoiled by someone in my family who fed some lies to Bill’s parole officer, causing him to be pulled up for a parole violation. When he was briefly sent to jail, I kept the business running as long as I could for him. He was so lovely to my son and everyone.
John, who hadn’t worked while married to his second wife, got a job in construction. But he hated doing manual work, and he resented the fact that I made more money than he did. He started drinking heavily. He could go through one or two cases of beer—up to twenty-four bottles—in a day. When I asked him why, he said he was homesick and missed his friends in Michigan. He also admitted that he’d drunk like that for most of his adult life. Then, when I was in the hospital for surgery, Nathan called to say he was alone—John had taken off.
Nathan
and I drove back to Michigan to spend Christmas with Marshall, Kim, and Hailie. We hadn’t been in the house two hours when John came knocking on the door.
“You want me to tell him to leave?” Marshall shouted.
“That’s my wife,” said John.
“I don’t give a damn. Leave!” Marshall snarled.
John begged to talk to me, and I hoped we could work things out. But Marshall refused to let him into the house.
John and I drove to a motel so we could discuss our future. I tried calling Marshall but he snapped, “You made your choice. You chose John over me.”
Then—click—the phone went dead. Every time I tried to call, he cut me off. Marshall often said he felt he was in the middle of a tug of war between Kim and me. Now I felt caught between Marshall and John.
We drove back to Missouri with John promising he really had given up drinking. We’d missed each other so much and, alcohol aside, got on so well. We never argued. But within weeks he was sullen, once more resentful about having to do manual work. Then he started drinking again.
I felt as if I were going to hell in a handbasket. Why had I been so stupid? Just like my mother, I attracted drunks.
At the beginning of February, John took off again. He just disappeared. My fourth marriage had gone the way of my previous three.
There was little point in moving back to Michigan. Anyway, Nathan preferred Saint Joseph. Marshall still telephoned every other night. If he wasn’t on the road doing concerts, he was in the studio recording. The Slim Shady LP was slated for release on February 23, 1999. Marshall said the first single, “Just Don’t Give a Fuck,” and “Brain Damage” would go out a few weeks earlier. He was also excited by his press coverage: he was forever telling me to go out and buy Spin Source Vibe, and whatever. He was also excited because Rolling Stone was putting him on the cover.
I was so proud of my son. I’d never doubted his talent; I always knew he’d make it. But even I was stunned at his overnight sensation. Nathan had the television tuned to MTV—Marshall was on constantly. He called to say the single was in the top ten. “My Name Is” followed, and The Slim Shady LP entered the Billboard pop chart at number two. Eminem was the name on everyone’s lips. My son Marshall was a star.
When The Slim Shady LP also topped the R&B charts, he was compared to Elvis Presley. Almost fifty years earlier, Elvis had taken traditional black music from the South and turned it mainstream. Now my son was doing the same thing with rap.
I heard the radio versions of his songs and watched his videos on TV. I had no idea how filthy his real lyrics were.
When Anthony Bozza from Rolling Stone phoned me, I was happy to give an interview. He’d been on tour with Marshall and told me I must be proud of him. We exchanged a few pleasantries, then Bozza asked me how I felt about being called “a fucking bitch” by Marshall.
I was so shocked I can’t even remember how I replied. But I know I let slip Marshall’s real age. He hadn’t warned me he’d shaved two years off his birth date to appear much younger.
My phone started ringing off the hook at the end of April, when the article appeared. It was full of lies.
Marshall, pictured naked with an exploding stick of dynamite covering his manhood, had invented a new mother. Apparently I was a drunk, “pill-popping, lawsuit-happy mom.” When he was fifteen, I’d ordered him to get a job, then constantly kicked him out after taking his wages.
I phoned Marshall in tears and begged to know why he’d said those things.
“It’s nothing,” he said. That was it. He refused to discuss it any further.
Other magazines printed Marshall’s quotes from Rolling Stone. It’s one of the most prestigious magazines in the world, gospel for music lovers, so no one doubted the interview. Every day there appeared to be a nastier, more lurid story in the media. Then Marshall gave MTV a tour of the house in Casco Township. He gave the impression that it was his, but he was about to abandon it for a big mansion.
I received letters from the finance company saying the payments had not been made.
“We don’t want your fucking place,” Kim said when I phoned to find out what was happening.
Marshall assured me that it was just a misunderstanding.
Kim had missed just one payment while he was on tour. It had all been sorted out. Anyway, he said, he was now flush with money. Soon he’d be able to buy a new house. His album had sold two million copies just in America. He was also number one in the United Kingdom and numerous other places across the world.
As always at the end of our conversations, he told me he loved and missed me. But this time he added excitedly that he was going to see me really soon. He was doing a show in Lawrence, Kansas, three hours’ drive from Saint Joseph, and he wanted me there. Of course, I said yes. The only time I’d ever seen him perform was at the Centerline School talent show, almost ten years earlier.
It still hadn’t hit me that my son Marshall was now Eminem, the hottest rap act going. Word soon got out in Saint Joseph that he was a local lad made good. Teenagers knocked on my door—they wanted my autograph! Nathan was bombarded with kids wanting signed posters. It seemed as if everywhere we went, everyone knew who we were.
I made the front page of the Saint Joseph News-Press. The headline read RAPPER EMINEM JUST REGULAR SON TO MOM. I was described as his number-one fan and quoted as saying, “I don’t think of him as anyone other than Marshall.” I admitted being “very heartbroken” by his comments in Rolling Stone, but explained that the persona of Eminem was nothing like the private Marshall.
It was a really nice article—nothing like the usual stories that accused Marshall of being a profanity-spewing, drug-taking, violent misogynist. I told the reporter Linda Wiedmaier that I’d meet her at Liberty Hall, where the concert was taking place, so she could hang out with us.
Nathan couldn’t wait to see his brother. As we arrived at the venue, there were literally hundreds of fans milling around. The roads were blocked off. I worried that the crowd would get out of control.
Nathan was so excited—we were all backstage, and Marshall wanted him out on the stage at the end of the set. I wasn’t sure, and nervously I watched to make sure Nate didn’t get grabbed. We were whisked around the back to Marshall’s tour bus. He was delighted to see us but looked exhausted.
We sat on the bus until it was time for him to go on stage. There were all sorts of people milling around him, including Tanya and Betti Renee, her husband, Jack, and various other family members. Marshall kept swigging from a water bottle. I later discovered it was full of Bacardi.
As I got off the bus, I was stopped by a boy of about eight who’d been hanging around in the rain.
“Ma’am, are you his mother?” he asked.
“Sure am,” I said.
“I’ve been trying to get his autograph for four hours,” he said. “It’s raining. Do you think you can get me one?”
He told me his brother was suffering from leukemia.
I said I’d see what I could do, but as I tried to get back onto the bus, I was stopped by a bodyguard. I told him about the little boy, explaining he had an Eminem baseball cap he’d like signed.
The guard just shook his head and said, “No. He’s done enough autographs for the night.”
I felt so sad for the boy, so I signed the cap instead. Then I slipped inside Liberty Hall for the start of the concert.
Marshall played for thirty-five minutes. I bobbed around taking photographs. Nathan darted from the wings and fired a power water pump at the audience during the finale. My heart was in my mouth; I feared the crowd would surge forward and grab Nathan. Then, in a flash, the lights went down and Marshall was gone. He’d explained earlier that he’d be on the bus and en route to the next city before the fans knew he’d left the building.
I retrieved Nathan backstage and then we wandered outside. Still there were fans milling around. When word went out that I was Marshall’s mom, I was mobbed. I must have signed a dozen autographs.<
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The next day’s Saint Joseph News-Press carried an article headlined HANGING OUT WITH EMINEM’S MOM. The reporter, Linda, wrote a really sweet article describing my “pretty, fragile features” and long blonde hair:
If not for the hair, eyes and chic hippie-chick outfit of gold-embroidered pants and vest over a black body suit, she might not have been noticed among her son’s young fans. Most of the teens and twenty-somethings were larger than the 5 ft. 2 and 98 pounds dripping-wet Debbie. But none were probably as formidable.
The article went on to describe how I’d raised my two sons almost singlehanded, I’d fostered other children, worked for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, was a Make-A-Wish volunteer, had taught myself to talk again after the 1991 car crash, and now ran my own limousine service.
I was delighted. Someone had finally set the record straight. Now I hoped all the magazine writers and rap fans would read that and realize I wasn’t a pill-popping, pot-smoking, alcoholic crazy woman.
I was nothing if not naïve.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It’s traditional for the bride’s mother to shed a few tears at her daughter’s wedding. But when my son Marshall married Kim, I cried throughout the entire thirty-minute ceremony. It was the saddest day of my life.
I know I should have been pleased, if only for my granddaughter Hailie’s sake. Marshall had begged for my blessing.
“Mom, I love her. We’ve been together all this time. We have a child together. Be happy for us, please,” he’d said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the vile faces Kim pulled behind his back after they’d told me they were getting married.
The proposal hadn’t exactly come out of the blue. After all, they’d been together since Kim was thirteen and Marshall was fifteen. He was now twenty-six and a doting dad himself; he kept telling me he knew his own mind. But until a few months before, he’d been a nobody—as Kim had constantly reminded him. Now the former $5.50-an-hour hamburger flipper was Eminem, the international superstar. I did wonder about Kim’s motives.
My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem: Setting the Record Straight on My Life as Eminem's Mother Page 10
