The difficult history of Eminem and his late mother Debbie Nelson

At the young age of 69, Debbie Nelson passed away. The mother of the superstar rapper Eminem had lung cancer.

Eminem, via his representative, Dennis Dennehy, confirmed his mother's death to US media. The rapper's mom passed away in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Eminem has always ruffled feathers - from his music to his life story. One of his controversies involved the complicated relationship with his mother.

This conflict between mother and son came to a head when, in 1999, Debbie Nelson sued her child for the sum of 10 million dollars.

But what makes a mother make such a decision? Did Eminen really have to give this amount to her mother?

It was undoubtedly one of the most controversial chapters in the artist's life. The case was triggered when Eminem said in his songs and interviews that his childhood had not been a bed of roses, largely due to his mother's addiction problems.

Debbie Nelson decided to sue her son for $10 million, accusing him of defamation.

The case ended up in court, but Debbie Nelson was only awarded 25,000 dollars in compensation.

This led Eminem's mother to try to get her money - and her story out - by any means possible. She wrote a book, entitled ‘My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem’, in which she told her version of the events and how hard it was to raise her son as a single mother.

She claimed that her son was manic-depressive and that he had over-dramatized events to make his story more marketable to the music industry.

Debbie Nelson apparently met Eminem's father, Marshall Mathers II, when she was 15. She became pregnant at 17 with Marshall Mathers III (Eminem's real name). They were abandoned by the baby's father a few months later; an absence that undoubtedly marked both of their lives.

Eminem's childhood was not easy, nor was his relationship with his mother. She suffered from depression and had a difficult relationship with illegal substances, alcoholism, and a string of boyfriends. They made life miserable for both Debbie and Marshall himself.

Eminem was growing up in a complicated environment, moving with his mother's mobile home from one place to another. He suffered traumas that he would only begin to make sense of through his music.

So many of his songs, particularly his early works, tell about the suffering and pain he felt growing up in such an unstable environment.

One example? ‘My Mom’, which goes:
‘"My mom, my mom" -- I know
you're probably tired of hearing the
"my mom" oh-oh whoa-oh,
but this is just a story
of when I was just a shorty
and how I became hooked on Va-al-iu-um.
Valium was in everything: food that I ate,
the water that I drank, f**** peas in my plate.
She sprinkled just enough for the disease in my steak
so every day I had at least three stomach aches."

Another example is ‘Cleanin' Out My Closet’, where Eminem confronts the trauma of parental abandonment.

His music acted as his own personal therapy.

In ‘Headlights’, however, he seemed to come to terms with the situation, acknowledging that he had said and sang some hurtful things that he didn't mean.

To some degree, mother and son reached peace in the last years of her life. When Eminem was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, his mother briefly left a message for him on her social media, telling him she loved him.

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