My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem: Setting the Record Straight on My Life as Eminem's Mother

by Nelson, Debbie

  Marshall told me later that the police officers asked for his autograph while they were fingerprinting him.

  Kim was accused of breaching the peace. Marshall was bailed the following morning on assault and weapons-possession charges. But as he left the police station, another officer called his cell phone. Dail had pressed charges over the previous day’s incident.

  I asked Marshall why he was carrying a gun. He claimed he needed it because he was always getting hassled.

  “Son, where are your bodyguards?” I wanted to know.

  It turned out his trusted security officer, Byron Williams, had been keeping a journal and planned to write a book about Marshall. My son was devastated. He thought Williams was a friend. He was so hurt, he’d dispensed with his bodyguards.

  I couldn’t believe he was roaming Detroit without protection and I was horrified that he was carrying a gun, regardless of whether it was loaded. He knew I hated firearms of any kind. My sister Tanya’s husband, Lynard, had taught Marshall how to shoot a couple of years earlier. He’d become infatuated with guns.

  Marshall was also worried about security at his house in Sterling Heights, across from the trailer park. It was on the main road, with just one small fence at the back that everyone climbed over. He often found fans in his swimming pool. Someone had set fire to his mailbox. He worried about going outside even to collect his newspaper.

  The house had a long driveway, but there was only one entrance. Fans blocked it with cars. When I dropped off Nathan, they tried to persuade me to take them inside. There were so many of them outside, it scared me.

  Marshall covered his face when he went out, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized.

  A week after his arrest, Marshall was on stage in Portland, Oregon, when he announced that reports of his marriage problems weren’t true, that Kim was in the wings. Then he pulled out an inflatable sex doll, committed a lurid act with it, threw it into the audience, and encouraged everyone to beat up the “Kim” doll.

  On July 7, while Hailie was watching TV downstairs with her cousin Lainie, Nathan, and Kim’s mother, Kathy, Kim smashed up her wedding picture and ornaments and tried to slash her wrists in the bathroom. She cut the wrong way, and her wrists ended up in bandages.

  Kathy called the police. Kim apparently told them, “There has got to be a better place than this.”

  All of this was colorfully covered by the world’s media. Kim never gave interviews, but she had written a letter to the Detroit Free Press after their June arrests saying, “I don’t think anybody in their right mind would cheat on a millionaire husband—especially with a nobody at a neighborhood bar.”

  No one who knows Kim took her suicide attempt seriously. She’d been creating dramas for years. She was forever locking herself in the bathroom, smashing mirrors, and breaking everything else in her wake. Everyone usually ignored her.

  Marshall decided it was time to send her a wakeup call. In August, two months after their first wedding anniversary, he filed for divorce, hoping it would shock her into calming down. That worked for a matter of days. She agreed to reconcile. Then she filed for divorce—and made it clear she was serious. Marshall was devastated.

  Marshall says his life started to unravel in 2000. He’d been betrayed by his bodyguard, faced five or more years in jail, was being sued by me along with John Guerra, he was battling Kim for custody of Hailie, and he hated the fame he’d spent years seeking.

  I agreed: 2000 was shaping up to be worse than 1999.

  Nan, who was eighty-eight, had been in ailing health for some years. She weighed just fifty-five pounds, and I knew we were losing her. She’d been the one constant in my life, the only real mother to me. As Nan’s health worsened, she and I had a talk about going to heaven. I assured her that if anyone deserved to go there, it was surely her. Nan had devoted her whole life to helping out us kids and anyone else who came to her. She looked after me, Steve, Todd—all of us. I told her we didn’t have to worry about that, as she was going to be here for a long time yet. Sadly, I was wrong. Nan lived only three short months after that. I only wish I could have been there when she passed away. I was in Missouri when I got the call. It was one of the saddest days of my life.

  Her death hit me so hard. She’d been born on June 6, 1912—she hated all those sixes; even the year she was born divided into sixes—and had lived a long, hearty life. But it didn’t make it any easier, losing her. She had lots more life to live—her last ten years had been very hard.

  She’d been such a character. As a Native American, she’d believed in natural medicine. I was stunned when she showed me a beautiful plant in her backyard. She said it was pot. Then she chopped it down and hung it up to dry. I worried she’d be arrested, but she just laughed, saying, “The police aren’t going to go after an old woman like me.”

  Nan, who’d grown up chewing tobacco, said she loved the smell of pot. She smoked it occasionally.

  When she died, her daughter Joyce took her ashes back to her native Alabama. Joyce wanted me to ask Marshall to contribute toward building a memorial for Nan. Nan had always said she wanted to be buried at the foot of her brother in Michigan.

  I was furious. Her wishes had been betrayed, and now everyone expected Marshall to pay for everything. Nan would not have approved, either. She never took from anyone: she spent her life looking after others and she was always good at giving sage advice. I did wonder what she’d think of her foul-mouthed great-grandson and his fans, who’d taken to calling me a pig and spitting at me.

  I’d got used to being recognized. With my mane of platinum-blonde hair I wasn’t hard to spot. But until then the fans had been polite, merely asking for autographs and snippets of gossip about my son.

  Missouri is part of what is known as the American Bible Belt. Most people attend church, yet the abuse I suffered was shockingly un-Christian. One day at the East Mills shopping mall in Saint Joe, two kids ran up to me, pulled the back of my hair, then spat at me. Nathan and I went to a movie theater. The kids behind us put chewing gum on the back of my seat and hair. Wherever I went, I was accosted by teenagers yelling abuse.

  I stopped watching TV programs about my son. It was too upsetting. I was officially the most hated mother in America.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kim and Marshall briefly reconciled before once again formally separating. As if to copy me, she announced she was going to sue him for ten million dollars, claiming she’d been defamed by the lyrics on “Kim.” They had no prenup, and Kim made it clear she was not only seeking custody of Hailie, but she was also going to take Marshall to the cleaners.

  “I’m leaving your son. He won’t pick up after himself. I am not his mother,” Kim said in a rare phone call to me.

  I explained I’d always tidied up after him. She butted in and started screaming over and over, “I am not his mother!”

  Then she said she was moving into an apartment with Hailie, and no one would ever know where they were.

  She was on a spend-spend-spend spree. She thought nothing of dropping six thousand dollars in fancy department stores such as Dillard’s and Marshall Field’s. She bought only expensive clothes.

  Marshall had more clothes than he knew what to do with. He was flooded with free gear from companies keen for him to wear their brands. He gave bags of them to the Salvation Army.

  Music pundits estimated that Marshall was worth more than thirty million dollars. I doubted that. But apparently he thought nothing of dropping hundred-dollar tips on drinks.

  Before his split with Kim, he’d lavished presents on her mother and stepfather. He bought them cars, furs, leather coats, jewelry—the lot. He was still trying to please them.

  The press reported that we weren’t talking, but we were. Our conversations were sometimes strained—I was still trying to drop my legal action against him—but, as always, he ended our calls by telling me he loved me. One Mother’s Day, flowers arrived signed, “Love, Marsh, your number one son.” He didn’t spend money o
n me, but I didn’t care. The little things counted. Among my most treasured possessions was one of his posters that he’d signed for me just before he married Kim. He’d written on it, “I love you even though you do more dope than I do. Ha, ha.”

  He wasn’t laughing over his split from Kim. On the phone, his voice was flatter and flatter. He always sounded so miserable.

  “I love her,” he told me.

  “I think she’s a habit,” I said. “And bad habits are hard to break. If you have any sense, you should run, not walk, away from her.”

  He could have any girl in the world, but the only one he wanted didn’t want him. It broke my heart to hear him sound so miserable. I tried to explain that there were many more women out there who would love him. But all he thought about was Kim’s rejection. He’d known her since he was fifteen; that was almost half of his entire life. He was used to having her around.

  Then there was Hailie and also Lainie, Kim’s niece, whom he’d formally adopted. He feared losing both of them. I offered to care for them both, but my half-sister Betti Renee and her husband, Jack, had become his live-in housekeepers. They watched over the girls when Marshall wasn’t around.

  They certainly weren’t my idea of caretakers. I was furious that Betti Renee was even in the house.

  Marshall said it was Kim’s doing. She and Betti Renee loved to party. It didn’t matter that Kim and Marshall had split—she still had a hold over everything he did.

  Nathan wanted to spend Christmas with Marshall. He was really worried about his big brother. Marshall had given interviews saying he’d tried to overdose on painkillers shortly after Hailie was born but had thrown up. If this happened, he never told me about it. However, Nathan was now extremely worried about Marshall.

  I spoke to Marshall on the phone, and he sounded very depressed. Kim had played him for what he felt was the last time, and all the world had seen it. I told him we would drive from Missouri to his home in Michigan to see him. I quickly packed the car with clothes and Nathan and I set off.

  But Betti Renee was there when we arrived. When I dropped Nathan off, she had security order me off the premises. So I checked into a nearby Motel 6. I had stayed there in the past and got to know most of the help—they were always very accommodating.

  Nathan returned early that evening, saying he didn’t feel welcome at the mansion because there were so many hangers-on around. I rented a DVD player and invited over some of his old school friends, and we spent the rest of the week holed up at the motel watching old movies.

  Nathan wanted to go on tour with Marshall. I really wasn’t sure, but Marshall got on the phone to me and said, “I promise there will be no alcohol, no dope smoking. I won’t let him do any of that.”

  When Nathan came back he told me there were Playboy bunnies and pretty girls everywhere and weed-smoking on the tour bus. He said things that made my hair curl. I’ve always encouraged my sons to talk to me about everything. No subject has ever been taboo.

  Marshall also fretted about the way Kim handled his fame. She was envious of him, complaining she couldn’t go anywhere without being hassled. She didn’t bother to hide the fact that she was seeing other men. She still had a hold over Marshall. He wasn’t allowed to date, even though they were separated, but she did what she wanted.

  Marshall put the Sterling Heights house up for sale. I’d never even been inside, as Kim had called security on me if I did anything other than drop off presents for Hailie or collect Nathan when he visited. I never usually got out of the car.

  I went up to the house once and I could see it had marble floors and chandeliers when I peeked through the glass of the front door. But that was it. Marshall soon found another place in Manchester Estates in nearby Clinton Township. It was a mansion inside a gated community, which meant he could keep the fans at bay.

  Marshall’s trial for pistol-whipping John Guerra was slated to start on Valentine’s Day. He phoned me from Europe, where he was on tour, worried he was going to jail and wouldn’t see Hailie for the next five years.

  “Are you coming to the trial?” he asked.

  Even though we were still involved in the lawsuit, and, according to the media that now accompanied Marshall wherever he went, we’d fallen out big time, I didn’t hesitate. My son needed me. I’d have jumped in front of a train if he’d asked me to.

  Nathan, who was now almost fifteen, was back on tour with Marshall. I still worried, even though he called most nights to let me know he was okay.

  I feared for Marshall, too. At the start of his tour in Germany he’d gone on stage with a chainsaw, simulated murder, and had apparently swallowed a handful of ecstasy pills. The next stop was Britain, where the police warned he’d be arrested if found with illegal substances.

  It wasn’t hard to keep up with news of my son. I had only to switch on the TV or pick up a newspaper to find out what he was doing. My phone at the taxi company was also ringing off the hook. Journalists from all over Europe wanted to interview me. Several simply turned up at my door.

  Britain’s Mail on Sunday offered me the chance to set the record straight. Here’s part of the article I wrote:

  I want to try to explain to his fans—and all the parents who I know are horrified by the lyrics in his songs—what makes my son tick. I want people to understand that the hate-filled rapper on stage is Eminem, and not my boy Marshall. Basically, no one should take anything he says seriously—he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t hate women or homosexuals and he’s not violent.

  He is making money out of negative issues because he could not make it as a rap star any other way. When he first started to write filthy lyrics I asked him why. His answer was the more foul he was, the more people loved him.

  The European press had a field day with Marshall. They called him Public Eminem Number One. They likened his concerts to Hitler Youth rallies because he whipped up so much hatred with his homophobic and misogynistic songs.

  Here’s a piece that appeared in the Daily Mail just before he arrived in the United Kingdom:

  The Eminem phenomenon has divided the world. His violent lyrics, dripping with grotesque imagery and obsessive profanities, have appalled parents. Little wonder, perhaps, that American President George W. Bush once described him as “the most dangerous threat to American children since polio.”

  Christian groups have despaired over his songs and their impact on young people. One influential American Rightwing preacher suggested that parents might need to arrange exorcisms for their children if they spent too much time listening to Eminem’s music.

  The article went on to say that kids didn’t take his stuff seriously, and that the crazed-fan character on his latest hit, “Stan,” was considered by some as a “stunning commentary on modern celebrity.” Along the route, my son had also been compared to the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and Elvis Presley.

  Scotland’s Daily Record traced his roots back to Edinburgh and suggested he could be descended from their national poet, Robert Burns. They even quoted an expert saying they looked similar and were both famous for drunken bad behavior!

  The British Daily Mirror interviewed Bruce. Once again, he claimed I’d disappeared with Marshall and he’d spent years trying to find us. Part of the article read:

  Speaking from his modest flat near San Diego, California, the factory worker revealed he just wanted his angry rapper son to know he was after his forgiveness—not his money. His only memory of his son is a faded baby picture he took with him when he left.

  Struggling to control his emotions, Bruce said: “I desperately want to meet my son and tell him I love him. I’m not interested in his money. I just want to talk to him. I want him to know that I’m here for him if he lets me back into his life.”

  He claimed to have just one grainy photo of himself holding his son as a toddler. That was something I found very odd, because Marshall’s baby book—which I’d left behind when we fled from Bruce—had somehow made its way to Germany. A magazine there had rep
rinted lots of pictures from it and quoted Bruce at length. Still, at least in the Mirror article, he acknowledged his past addictions, saying he now attended Alcoholics Anonymous and counseling sessions at a drink and drugs rehab center.

  Nathan returned from Europe all excited about the places he’d been. He said Kim still managed to create havoc from 3,500 miles away, sparking a big feud when she could not get through on the phone to Marshall’s hotel in Manchester. It also transpired that the British police had swooped on Marshall’s so-called ecstasy pills. It turned out they were bits of dried-up chewing gum! Needless to say, I was relieved.

  Marshall pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon.

  I was furious. It meant he would have a criminal record. But he said his lawyers had struck a deal with the prosecutors, who’d agreed to drop the more serious charge of assault with a deadly weapon, which carried a four-year jail sentence. Even so, he still feared he’d be imprisoned and again asked me to be there for him at the next hearing.

  At the beginning of April, Nathan and I drove to Michigan and checked into a luxurious hotel near the Macomb County Court House. We hid away on the second floor; Marshall was on the ground floor. The staff was lovely, but early on they called me and asked if I could possibly pick up his clothes. There was stuff all over the floor and, because he was famous, they’d been told they could not move anything if they were to enter his room.

  Marshall believed he’d be sent to jail because of who he was. But he insisted to me that he hadn’t pistol-whipped Guerra.

  “I hit him with my fist, the gun just fell out of my pants,” he told me. “I swear, if I’d have hit him with the gun I’d have split his head open. I was so angry.”

  Nathan and I slipped into the back of the court just before the end of the hearing. The public benches were packed with kids wearing Eminem T-shirts. My heart was in my mouth as the prosecutor asked the judge to sentence Marshall to six months in jail. Marshall, looking the height of respectability in spectacles and a smart dark suit and tie, hung his head and showed no emotion.