Eminem is angry (or seems angry) most of the time. Why? Well, to begin with, his childhood was utterly, totally dysfunctional. Marshall Bruce Mathers III, a.k.a. Eminem was born to Bruce and Debbie Mathers in 1972. Eminem was dragged around the Midwest, as his parents' band, Daddy Warbucks played at various Ramada Inns. It was "a scraping the bottom of the barrel" kind of life.
The feckless and irresponsible Bruce deserted Debbie and sometime actor and rapper Eminem when the boy was an infant. As a child, the now mega-wealthy Eminem wrote lots of letters to his father. They were ignored. Debbie had a second son Nathan by another man.
Debbie drifted around the country, barely surviving, with her two sons in tow. It was a childhood filled with abuse, bullying and poverty.
And the scars of his childhood have carried forward to his adult life. It too, on a personal level, has been messed up and dysfunctional. But it has also fueled his songwriting ethos, giving him plenty of bad news to write about and work through.
Let's look at super-successful Eminem's dysfunctional childhood and how it has affected the man.
Heading Nowhere Fast
Bruce and Debbie Mathers were musicians who mooched around the U.S. in a band called Daddy Warbucks. They were drifters, barely eking out a living playing at Ramada Inns. It is not surprising that Bruce, faced with fatherhood and all that implied, deserted Debbie and their infant son, Marshall Bruce Mathers III. The boy who grew up to become the rich and famous white rapper we know as Eminem repeatedly tried to communicate with his father. His letters came back marked, almost certainly by his father's hand, "Return to Sender".
Later, after Eminem was rich and famous, Bruce tried to contact him, saying he wasn't interested in money, he only wanted to communicate with his son. Sure.
After Bruce left, Debbie had another son Nathan with another man. He, like Bruce, disappeared out of her life. She was left to travel from one place to the next, headed nowhere fast. When she could, she sponged off family. But her life, and the lives of her sons, were often nomadic, moving back and forth between Missouri and Michigan. Poverty and neglect were visited on her sons. And, even worse, Debbie was physically abusive, especially to her older son, the confused little boy who was to become Eminem.
At one point, Debbie abandoned Eminem, leaving him with his Great-Aunt Edna and his Uncle Charles. They did the best they could. Back with Debbie, Eminem's younger brother Nathan had more to do with parenting his half-brother than his mother did.
Bullied At School, Failing 9th Grade, Dropping Out
If and when Eminem made it to school, he was often bullied. His biggest nightmare was a boy named D'Angelo Bailey. At one point, Bailey's physical abuse led to the future super-star being in a coma for days. Eminem's 1999 song "Brain Damage" pins the bully badge firmly on Bailey. While admitting the bullying, Bailey still had the nerve to sue the rapper for $10 million. The judge was firmly on Eminem's side, throwing the case out and summing up her reasons in the form of rap lyrics!
Eminem has been outspoken about his childhood and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his drug-addicted mother. She had the nerve to sue the rapper for defamation in 1999. She got a result, all of $25,000. Most of it went to her lawyer. She netted around $1,600.
It will surprise no one that Eminem was a washout at school, reportedly failing the 9th grade three times before dropping out of school altogether when he was 17-years-old. He admitted to Rolling Stone that the only thing he was good at was English. That stood him in good stead when he started writing rap lyrics. As a kid, he was a natural-born storyteller. And when he discovered hip hop, it was a marriage made in heaven.
Discovering Hip Hop
His life changed for the better when his Uncle Ronnie Polkinghorn gave him a copy of Ice-T's single "Reckless". By the age of 14, he was performing at amateur raps using the pseudonym of "M&M". His uncle Ronnie later committed suicide, leading to the Eminem tattoo "Ronnie R.I.P.". While his mom does not fare well in Eminem's song "Cleanin' Out My Closet", Uncle Ronnie gets a favorable nod. Like most singer/songwriters, Slim Shadey, a.k.a. Eminem, draws on his past experiences, good and bad, as fodder for his music and lyrics.
And his upbringing haunted his adult life, with a dysfunctional relationship with his baby mama and sometimes wife, Kim Scott. Like his mother, he developed an addiction to drugs. In 2007 he was hospitalized because of a methadone overdose. With the help of counseling and the mentorship of Sir Elton John, Eminem has been clean and sober since 2008.
But he is still angry, after all these years. And rightly so.