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Grammy-winning rapper Eminem rose to prominence with a tough-guy exterior and lyrics that would make many blush. But when he was young, Marshall Mathers was anything but the Slim Shady persona he would later embody: he faced bullying in school and frequently dealt with being beaten up by his peers.

Eminem, who was subject to bullying as a child, posing for a photo
Eminem | Michel Linssen/Redferns

Eminem dealt with bullying growing up

Eminem reflected on his youth in Detroit in a 2011 interview with Anderson Cooper. His mother was addicted to prescription painkillers, leaving the young Marshall Mathers to bounce between living with her and other family members in Michigan and Missouri.

“I would change schools two, three times a year and that was probably the roughest part,” he said. “[I got] beat up in the bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved in the lockers, just, for the most part, being the new kid.” One of these beatings was so bed he ended up spending 10 days in a coma in the hospital. 

The song “Brain Damage” on his sophomore album The Slim Shady LP referenced one of his bullies and the real-life head trauma he faced. “[He used to] beat the s*** out of me,” he told Rolling Stone in 1999. “I was in fourth grade, and he was in sixth. One time, he came running across the schoolyard and hit me so hard into this snowbank that I blacked out.” 

Rap became Eminem’s savior

Eminem’s mom’s half brother Ronnie Polkingharn introduced the young Mathers to hip-hop at just 12 years old. According to Music Spotlight, the first song he heard was Ice-T’s track “Reckless” from the 1984 movie Breakin’. He quickly fell in love with what he heard and started absorbing the music of major hip-hop artists like the Beastie Boys, Rakim, Masta Ace, LL Cool J, and N.W.A.

Later, at 14, Eminem started rapping together with his friend Mike Ruby; they named their duo M&M for Mike and Marshall, but Marshall soon took on the name Eminem for himself. He dropped out of high school after one year in 1989 and started rapping in a makeshift studio in Ruby’s basement.

Rap, for Eminem, was an escape from all the difficulties he faced in his everyday life. “If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down,” Eminem told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “I didn’t have nothin’ going for me… School, home…Until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.”

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He eventually became a global superstar

Eminem’s breakout came at the turn of the millennium, first with his sophomore album The Slim Shady LP followed by The Marshall Mathers LP. He made his big screen debut in 2002 with his semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile and earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his smash hit “Lose Yourself.” His album The Eminem Show was released that same year and remains the best-selling rap album of all time.

Eminem has continued to rap in the years since, with his most recent album being 2020’s Music to Be Murdered By and his 2022 greatest hits album Curtain Call 2. 2022 was a major year for Eminem, as he performed at the Super Bowl halftime show next to other hip-hop icons Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar.

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