Eminem: A Brief Story Of Debbie Nelson's Life

At 14 years old Eminem's mother, Debbie Nelson, met his father, Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr at 18 years old. His parents were in a band together called the Warbucks. On October 17, 1972, Eminem, aka Marshall Bruce Mathers III or Bruce, was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. Debbie Nelson was only 17 years old when she had Bruce, and almost died during labor. As an infant, Bruce's father left both him and his mother and moved California. Bruce had a troubled family life. He never really knew his father and tried to send him letters, but they were always "Return to Sender". His mom couldn't hold a job for more than a several months and Bruce often worked many jobs to help his mother pay the bills. They moved from place to place across the Midwest

Bruce, at 14 years old, began rapping with a high school friend Mick Ruby. They often snuck into Osborn High School to have lunchroom freestyle rap battles. Bruce also attended open-mic contests and was much appreciated by underground hip hop audiences. At that time, rap music was usually produced my black people. Bruce, who was pale and blue eyed, entered into the Detroit rap scene as a competitor in rap battles. The rap battles are competitions where two rappers took turns to insult each other through rap lyrics. He quickly became one the of most respected figures in the Detroit rap

At that time, he was dating Kim Ann Scott and in 1995, they had a daughter named Hailie Jade Scott. With Hailie's birth, it inspired Eminem to make a living as a rapper. Raising newborn Hailie was a struggle and Bruce worked at a family-restaurant with little wage. He started to record music but it failed to make a profit. It also didn't attract more people than the local attention. About a year later, he released The Slim Shady EP. Dre discovered his music and was very impressed. Eminem worked with Dre for two years and released The Slim Shady LP. The heavily hyped record became very successful and three million copied were sold. Later that year, Eminem and Kim got married. After couple years of recording music and releasing albums, he was consumed by personal problems and recorded very little music for several years. Eminem and Kim divorced in 2000 and had an off-and-on relationship until they remarried in 2006. Several months after, they divorced again and began a very ugly public custody dispute over Hailie. Eminem began to slip more into alcoholism and addiction to sleeping pills. He overdosed and almost died in December of 2007. Eminem says, "If I would have got to the hospital two hours later, that would have been it." In 2008, he got rid of his addictions and recorded more music. He released several albums about his relapse and