With eleven studio albums and more than 100 million sales worldwide, Eminem definitely needs no introduction. Coming up as a vanilla rapper with one daughter in the Detroit battle rap scene with no wonderful childhood and no stable job, Eminem had a lot to say in his early days. From his unhealed childhood scar to his deep hate against the media, his life story is the backbone of his music, and that's why his fans listen to his words religiously.
Not only does he cement his life story on his art, but he also permanently prints them on his body. To this day, Eminem has nine tattoos printed all over his body from his shoulders, abdomen, forearms, and wrists. Each tattoo has a different and exciting story behind it, and that is precisely what we're diving into today.
9 'Ronnie RIP'
Eminem has his violent alter ego 'Slim Shady,' a big mushroom with the distressing life of Detroit, and 'Ronnie RIP' on his left shoulder as a homage to his late uncle, Ronnie Polkinghorn, who took his own life in 1991. Ronnie introduced young Marshall to his first-ever hip-hop song: Reckless by Ice-T.
"My uncle Ronnie first turned me on to hip-hop when I was 11," Eminem wrote on his The Way I Am autobiography. "We were about the same age, and we grew up together as kids in Missouri."
Despite his broken family, Eminem seemed to share a deep connection with his late uncle. He name-drops Ronnie on multiple occasions, notable on Stan, "I read about your Uncle Ronnie too, I'm sorry / I had a friend kill himself over some b***h who didn't want him," and Groundhog Day, "And one day Uncle Ronnie brought over this new but different / Music into the picture, and it became my new religion."
8 'Hailie Jade'
Eminem has the name of his daughter, Hailie Jade, inked on his right forearm. She was born on Christmas Day of 1995. For Eminem, as he told Mike Tyson, Hailie always made him proud, and it's essential to keep his kids grounded.
"She has a boyfriend," he said. "She's doing good, and she's made me proud for sure. She's graduated from college (with a) 3.9 (score)."
Although you might remember her as the adorable little girl who croons on My Dad's Gone Crazy and from the Mockingbird music video, Hailie is now a grown, 24-year-old woman. She's on Instagram, too, and she posts her regular workout routines and fashion inspiration for her 2 million followers.
7 A Portrait Of His Daughter
More from Hailie. Eminem has a big portrait of his beloved daughter and a bed of rose on his right shoulder. The evil genius behind it is Mark 'Mister Cartoon' Machado, a tattoo artist from Los Angeles, California.
"I've seen him perform before I even knew who he was. It was at one of Bigga B's events downtown," the tat artist told Adam John Grandmaison on an episode of No Jumper podcast. "We showed up, and Em walked to the stage, and the whole crowd was like 'boooooo.' People were not hyped. And then five minutes of him rapping, the place was quiet as f**k. I ended up meeting him through Cypress (Hills). Once I tattooed him, I no longer needed a portfolio."
6 'D-12'
Eminem also has 'D' on his right forearm and '12' on his left. D-12, or also known as The Dirty Dozen or D-Twizzie, was a made-in-Detroit hip-hop group which consisted of Eminem himself and five other Motor City rappers: Proof, Bizarre, Swift, Mr. Porter, and Kuniva. Proof was the first to come up with the idea of forming a Wu-Tang-like group of 12 finest and sharpest Detroit rappers, but he only managed to find 6 with each having violent alter-egos like Slim Shady.
"Started a group of misfits, Proof had a proposition / If we all band together, there ain't no stoppin' this s**t," Eminem raps on Groundhog Day form The Marshall Mathers LP 2. "Come up with aliases, bipolar opposites and / Be ready to come off the top as sharp precision."
5 'Slit Me'
Eminem had a pretty disturbing past. Around 1996 to 1997, he was at the lowest point of his life: his debut album Infinite horribly flopped, he just got fired from his job only three days before his daughter's birthday, he got evicted from his house, and he pretty much had been through it all. He pretty much sums it up on Rock Bottom from The Slim Shady LP, "My life is full of empty promises and broken dreams / I'm hopin' things look up, but there ain't no job openings."
"And I'm sick of workin' dead-end jobs with lame pay," he raps. "And I'm tired of bein' hired and fired the same day."
He has 'Slit Me' tattooed on his right wrist for his suicidal tendencies around that time. Luckily, he found his way out, and the rest is history.
4 'Proof'
Before they were rappers and great on-stage partners, Eminem and DeShaun 'Proof' Holton had a long history together. The two went to the same high school along. When Eminem was still a cook at Michigan's Gilbert's Lodge, Proof already started making a name for himself, linking with local Detroit legends from J. Dilla, Slum Village, and many others, and forming D-12.
As Eminem rose to fame in 1999, he signed D-12 to his Shady Records imprint. Proof and co had two platinum-certified albums, Devil's Night and D12 World, under their belt and toured around the world before Proof was fatally shot in 2006.
The death of Proof shocked and saddened everyone, including his longtime best friend, Eminem. To cherish the memory of him, Eminem has 'Proof' tattooed on his left forearm.
3 'Rot In Pieces'
Eminem has 'Rot in Pieces - Kim' tattooed on his abdomen. His up-and-down and turbulent relationship with his longtime sweetheart, Kimberly Scott, is well-documented throughout his music. The two met up during their younger days when Eminem was shirtless and rapping to LL Cool J's I'm Bad on a table. Sadly, things went sour as things got violent in the Detroit neighborhood, and Eminem rose to fame. The rapper publicly humiliates Kim on so many songs, from '97 Bonnie & Clyde on The Slim Shady LP to Puke from Encore.
Fortunately, things have settled down between the two now.
"Kim and I have had our differences, sure, but things are good between us now," Eminem wrote in 2006's The Way I Am autobiography. "She's there holding the fort down – and she does an amazing job."
2 'Bonnie & Clyde'
More from The Slim Shady EP & LP era, Eminem has a 'Bonnie & Clyde' and a portrait of a getaway vintage car on his right upper arm right below the beautiful Hailie. It's a nod to his 1999 song, '97 Bonnie & Clyde from The Slim Shady LP (titled Just The Two of Us on The Slim Shady EP), where he gruesomely fantasizes of dumping the body of Kim under the lake with Hailie helping him.
This little "topic of discussion" was also written in the summer of '97. "Again, during that time, a lot of f***ed-up s**t just started snowballin' for me. It was also when Kim and I weren't really seeing eye to eye and whatnot," Eminem wrote in his 2000 autobiography Angry Blonde. "See, we weren't together, and she was using my daughter, Hailie, as a weapon against me, and she wasn't lettin' me see her. I originally wrote the song to get back at her so that she could hear it."
1 Tribal Bracelet
Lastly, we have tribal bracelet artwork on his left wrist, a familiar artwork from The Marshall Mathers LP album. Although it's pretty unclear about the reasoning behind it, Eminem said it once that he did it when he was 'drunk and wasted.'
In fact, this wasn't the first time Eminem did something to his body when he's out of his mind. Eminem's original hair is actually dark, something he kept until 1997's The Slim Shady EP era, and his signature peroxide blonde look came to life when he was wasted from alcohol. As for now, though, Eminem had ditched his blonde hair and grown thick beards.
Talk about a good fun time, huh?