Eminem Reflects On Relationship With Mother (Photo Credit – YouTube/Facebook)
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Eminem’s mother, Debbie Nelson, died of lung cancer. Since his major-label debut, The Slim Shady LP, Eminem has often spoken about his difficult upbringing and complicated feelings about his mother. He continued featuring his mother in his rap music over the years, which led to a few responses from Debbie Nelson herself, including legal action and a memoir.
Eminem was at his most caustic in “Cleaning Out My Closet.” However, he’d become more apologetic and conciliatory by the time of The Marshall Mathers LP2.
Read on to find out how Eminem’s love-hate relationship with his mother featured in his music.
Eminem spoke about his mother since his debut album.
Eminem’s early mentions of his mother return to his 1998 debut album, The Slim Shady LP. In the song “Brain Damage,” he joked about how she could never breastfeed him.
Eminem would continue to poke fun at his mother in a provocative manner in the follow-up “The Marshall Mathers LP,” whose first track, “Kill You,” had him enact a violent fantasy towards her. He even acknowledged the outrageous nature of his lyrics with the self-deprecating lines: “Oh, now he’s r*ping his mother, abusing a wh*re, snorting c*ke, and we gave him the Rolling Stone cover?” Debbie Nelson sued him for defamation in 2000. She also wrote about her life as Eminem’s mother in the 2008 memoir My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, where she disputed much of the characterization Eminem had given her in his music.
In The Eminem Show, Eminem escalated his hatred towards his mother in the single “Cleaning Out My Closet.” Unlike his earlier songs on his mother, which deliberately featured exaggerations and irony, “Cleaning Out My Closet” was a thoroughly earnest condemnation of his upbringing and his mother’s character.
Eminem continued ironically portraying his mother in Encore’s “Evil Deeds” and Relapse’s “My Mom.” However, in The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Eminem softened his stance on his mother.
Debbie herself would later congratulate him on being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 and further compliment his daughter, Hailee Jade, on establishing a successful career as a podcaster and influencer. As of this writing, Eminem has not publicly commented on his mother’s passing.
