Random Fascinating Facts You Didn't Already Know About Eminem (27 items)

(#23) He Usually Finds the Beat Before the Lyrics

Eminem said the following Rolling Stone about his process:
"I think the beat should talk to you and tell you what the hook is. The hook for "Just Lose It" I probably wrote in about 30 seconds once the beat came on. It was the last record we made for the album. We didn't feel like we had a single yet. That was a song that doesn't really mean anything. It's just what the beat was telling me to do."
Source: Rolling Stone
(#16) Eminem's Mother Sued Him for $10 Million

The fall before the Slim Shady LP was released, his Mother, Debbie Mathers-Briggs, sued the rapper for $10 million citing a defamation of character (and to this day, claiming everything Eminem said on his records was untrue, and that he grew up in a drug free household). The court eventually settled on $250,000.

"How does it feel? It feels like sh*t. How would you feel? One thing I can tell you is that every single word I said about my mother and my upbringing was true."

Source: LA Times
(#24) He Created the Slim Shady Alias on the Toilet

Eminem's rhymes grew angrier after the album Infinite was trashed, and he realized he needed an outlet. That's when Eminem created Slim Shady... while he was on the toilet.
"Boom, the name hit me, and right away I thought of all these words to rhyme with it," he says. "So I wiped my @ss, got up off the pot and, ah, went and called everybody I knew."
Slim allowed Marshall Mathers/Eminem to vent all of his angriest most vile thoughts in another persona. Soon all six members of D12 chose alter egos so the group would have 12 members.
Source: Rolling Stone
(#9) His Different Names Represent Different Personas

He told Spin magazine, "Slim Shady is the name for my temper or Anger. Eminem is just the rapper, Slim Shady is the attitude behind him, and Marshall Mathers is who I am at the end of the day."
Source: SPIN
(#22) He Dropped Out of High School in Ninth Grade

After failing ninth grade for the third time, Mathers had had it with school. He has said, "my mother was like, 'Get a f*cking job and help me with these bills, or your @ss is out.' Then she would f*cking kick me out anyway, half the time right after she took most of my paycheck." So he got a job, then began rapping on the side, practicing every time his mom left for Bingo.
Source: Rolling Stone
(#4) He Squatted in His Old Apartment the Night Before He Was Discovered by Dre

Eminem experienced what every musician dreams of... happenstance discovery. He was at the LA Rap Olympics and was noticed by someone in the mailroom at Interscope, who then managed to get his mixtape to Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. The two loved it (and mixtapes rarely ever turn into much).
What's even crazier is that the night before, he had to break into his own place, from which he'd just been evicted. "I had to break in," he says. "I didn't have anywhere else to go. There was no heat, no water, no electricity. I slept on the floor, woke up, went to L.A. I was so pissed."
Source: Rolling Stone