Eminem: The Ultimate Girl Dad – And How He Broke Down Barriers & Became The Cycle Breaker Of His Family’s Dysfunctional Past

Eminem is probably the greatest rapper of our generation; or at least of my generation. In 2022, the world recognized his achievements and accomplishments in the music industry as he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Megan Fox, who was our subject matter in our previous blog entry, starred in his 2010 music video, ‘Love The Way You Lie’, which also starred Aaron Paul, and featured Rihanna as a vocalist. Machine Gun Kelly famously started a beef with Eminem when he tweeted a sexual remark towards his daughter, Hallie Jade, in 2012, when she was just 16 years old. In 2018, MGK released ‘Rap Devil’, an Eminem diss track. In turn, Eminem released ‘Killshot’ as a response. MGK’s album which was released following their feud greatly suffered in sales.

Despite Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, and his mother’s, Debbie, years-long rift, she made a YouTube video that year congratulating her son on his career milestone. She said in the video, ‘Marshall, I want to say, I could not let this day go by without congratulating you on your induction into the Hall of Fame. I love you very much. I knew you’d get there. It’s been a long ride. I’m very, very proud of you. And also I’m very proud of Hailie Jade, my big girl.’ Not once did she mention Eminem’s other two kids, Stevie Laine and Alaina Marie, and neither did she mention her second son, Nate Mathers.

And not once did Eminem mentioned Debbie in his acceptance speech. It read as follows, ‘So I’m probably not supposed to actually be here tonight because of a couple of reasons. One of them that I’m a rapper, and this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there’s only a few of us right now that have been inducted in already, but there’s only a few of us. Secondly, I almost died from an overdose in 2007, which kind of sucked. Hailie, plug your ears: because drugs were f—ing delicious, and I thought we had a good thing going man, but I had to go and f— it all up and take too many. God damn. OK Hailie. I had to really fight my way through man to try and break through in this music, and I’m so honored and I’m so grateful that I’m even able to be up here doing hip-hop music, man, because I love it so much.’

He didn’t mention his bond-biological children here either, but that’s probably because neither of them were there. As a refresher, or as a reference, Eminem adopted Stevie Lane after her mother, Kim Scott, Eminem’s ex-wife and Hailie Jade’s mother, had her with another man during an affair. Stevie Lane’s biological father, Eric Hartter, died of a deadly combination of cocaine and fentanyl in 2019. Eminem adopted Alaina Marie as a child after her mother, Kim’s twin sister, wasn’t able to cope with her addiction. She eventually succumbed and passed away in 2015. And finally, he got his brother out of foster care when his brother was 16. He initially tried to get custody of his brother when he was 20, but was denied.

In 2004, before Stevie, previously known as Whitney, was born, Eminem opened up to Rolling Stone on adopting his niece and becoming his brother’s guardian. He said, ‘I was always there for Hailie, and my niece has been a part of my life ever since she was born. Me and Kim pretty much had her, she’d live with us wherever we was at. When he (Nate) was taken away, I always said if I ever get in a position to take him, I would take him. I tried to apply for full custody when I was 20, but I didn’t have the means. I couldn’t support him. I watched him when he was in the foster home. He was so confused. I mean, I cried just goin’ to see him at the foster home. I just want [Hailie] and my immediate family — my daughter, my niece, and my little brother — to have things I didn’t have: love and material things. But I can’t just buy them things. I have to be there.’

Eminem fairly leaves his personal life private., though he frequently raps about his children and fatherhood. In songs such as ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Going Through Changes’, ‘Somebody Save Me’ ‘Habits’, and most recently, ‘Temporary’ Lyrics include:

• ‘Daddy’s still here / Lainey I’m talkin’ to you, too, daddy’s still here / I like the sound of that, yeah / It’s got a ring to it don’t it?’
• ‘Hailie Jade, I wrote you this song / To help you cope with life now that I’m gone. How should I start? Just wanna say / Look after Alaina, Stevie, and Uncle Nate.’
• ‘F*ck it, Jade, I’ll be honest / I knew that you was gonna take this the hardest.’
• ‘I don’t even deserve the father title.
  Hailie, I’m so sorry / I know I wasn’t there for your first guitar recital / Didn’t walk you down the aisle / Missed the birth of your first child / Your first podcast, lookin’ down, sweetie / I’m so proud of how you turned out / Sorry that I chose drugs and put ’em above you.’
• ‘Alaina, sorry that you had to hear me fall in the bathroom. Sorry that I missed your gradu-, wait, Nate, I should just congratulate you / On bein’ a dad to Carter and Liam, look at you / Little bro, sorry I left you / Sorry that I’ll never get to / Hold or hug my little nephews.’
• ‘Stevie, I’m sorry, I missed you / Grow up and I didn’t get to / Be the dad I wanted to be to you / Things I wanted to see you do / This is my song from me to you / Sorry I gave up, but I’m just so defeated.’
• ‘Look after Eleana, Stevie and Uncle Nate / And, sweetie, be strong; I know I was your rock, and I still am / Saying goodbye is just not ever easy.’

In 2020, Eminem spoke about fatherhood on Mike Tyson’s podcast, ‘Hotboxin’’. He said, ‘When I think about my accomplishments that’s probably the thing I’m the most proud of is that — being able to raise kids.’

It’s pretty safe to say that Eminem’s role as a father to all his kids wasn’t taken lightly, and others took notice. In September, 50 Cent revealed that Eminem turned down an opportunity to tour the world in order to be more present in his children’s lives. He told CBS’s Michelle Miller, ‘I’m like, ‘Yo, we should go and do a tour like this. You know how much they’d pay us to do that? ‘Cause we’ll be on super arena stages, just me and you then if we bring [Dr. Dre] on some dates, so we do different things. We don’t need nothing else. It’ll be the biggest tour in the world. And he’ll be like, ‘You go do it.’ ‘Cause he didn’t want to leave. One time he told me … he said, ‘I just don’t want to go and come back and Hailie’s grown.’ And I did not know what he meant. When he said that to me, I thought he was crazy because I was like, He just don’t want to go. ‘Cause I was trying to convince him to go on the tour at that point. And then … I was at Hailie’s wedding. She got married and I’m like, This is what he’s talking about. Like it was so fast, the time was so fast that we were actually gonna get married, she’s grown…I said it to him at the wedding … I said, ‘Remember you said that to me? and I said, ‘I didn’t understand what you meant till now.

And of Hailie Jade’s wedding, 50 Cent said, ‘It was unbelievable. The wildest thing to me, period. I was like: ‘Yo, bro, this is crazy. We’re getting old. Your baby is grown. What the f*ck is going on? I was having a moment myself over there. I told Em: ‘You said it was OK to cry? Because I’m crying!’ I couldn’t believe it went that fast.’

If there’s anyone that Eminem and his journey to parenthood reminds me of, it’s Fiona Gallagher. She’s the fictional character played by Emmy Rossum on the American version of ‘Shameless’ which was originated in Britain the decade prior. She was also the subject matter in one of my most recent blog entries, which you can definitely check out after THIS one. Fiona was the eldest of 6 children. When their parents, Frank and Monica Gallagher were deemed unfit, she undertook the parenting role herself, starting at the age of 9. She did a pretty damn good job at it. That’s not to say that she didn’t make mistakes, because she did. She made a lot of them; even ones that almost killed them. But she tried her very best.

And so did Eminem. It’s evident in his lyrics. He messed up, of course. But he was a great parent to all of his children; adoptive and not. All he ever wanted to do was provide his kids with everything he never had a love and materialistic things, as he said so himself. His mother never provided neither one of those things; not with him, nor with his brother. And speaking of his mother, she was the subject matter in his songs as well, particularly in ‘Cleaning Out My Closet. Lyrics include:

• ‘I just found out my mom does more dope than I do/ I told her I’d grow up to be a famous rapper/ Make a record about doin’ drugs and name it after her.’
• ‘I’m sorry, mama/ I never meant to hurt you/ I never meant to make you cry/ But tonight I’m cleanin’ out my closet.’
• ‘My mom loved Valium and lots of drugs/ That’s why I am like I am ’cause I’m like her/ Because my mom loved Valium and lots of drugs/ That’s why I’m on what I’m on ’cause I’m my mom.’
• ‘I’m gettin’ thinner, I’m hungry, is Mom cookin’ dinner/ Mom! Let me back in! I forgot my coat/ Mom, come on, I’m not playin’, it’s cold!/ Alright, sorry, I need a jacket.’
• ‘But regardless, I don’t hate you ‘cause, Ma/ You’re still beautiful to me, ‘cause you’re my mom/ Though far be it from you to be calm/ Our house was Vietnam, Desert Storm.’
• ‘My mother started screamin’, What are you on, drugs/ Look at you, you’re gettin’ blood all over my rug/ She beat me over the head with the remote control.’
• ‘My f—–g b—h mom’s suin’ for $10 million/ She must want a dollar for every pill I’ve been stealin’/ S–t, where the f–k you think I picked up the habit/ All I had to do was go in her room and lift up her mattress.’
• ‘I yelled for Mom (Mom) and as she’s rushin’ to my defense/ I stood up and said, ‘F–k you, punk’ and I took off and ran/ To my bedroom, as I fled.’
• ‘He just hung himself in the bedroom, he’s dead/ Debbie, don’t let that f—-r get you upset/ Go in there, stick a f—-n’ cigarette to his neck.’
• ‘Ever since my mother was pregnant with a second egg/ Cause she said that I had a baby sister/ Who fell out of the window, I was too young to remember.’
• ‘Why you crying? Just stop / Hailie, baby, dry your eyes, this is not forever.’

In 1999, Debbie Nelson, Eminem’s mother, shied the singer for $10 million after he called her a drug addict in his songs. The lawsuit was eventually settled in 2001. Nelson only won $25,000. She only got to keep $1,600 of it as the rest went to cover her legal fees. It was following the lawsuit that Eminem released ‘Cleaning Out My Closet in 2002. By 2014, the two reconciled, and Eminem released the song, Headlights’, where he claimed he still loved his mother despite their history.

The same couldn’t be said about Nate Mathers. When Nelson passed away due to cancer earlier this month, he posted on Instagram, ‘Hatred and mixed emotions today.’ In contrast, when he appeared on Hailie Jade’s podcast, Just A Little Shady, Nate said of his older brother, ‘He was the best role model I could have had to help me be the dad that I am today.’ When speaking to her podcast’s co-host, Brittany, of her father’s newest music about her, Hailie Jade said, ‘Speaking of things I watched this past week, which I guess I’ll say watched, but I refused to watch again—the ‘Somebody Save Me’ music video is out and I did watch the thing. I don’t think I can do it again. I definitely cry every time I hear it at all. Between that and ‘Temporary,’ OK, well, that I listened to and it broke me. I audibly sobbed I think for both songs, but especially ‘Temporary’. The older I get, the less I can listen to any of the songs.’

When Alaina Marie, who calls Eminem ‘dad’, was getting married in 2023, she told People magazine of her rapper father, ‘He wasn’t going to miss that. None of this would have been possible without my dad. I’m beyond blessed.’ Back in 2022, Hailie Jade, Alaina Marie, and Nate were all present to support Eminem in his superbowl performance with Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre. Stevie was nowhere to be seen. Stevie, who is gender fluid and goes by the pronouns ‘they/them’, shared glimpses into their rocky relationship with Eminem on TikTok when they found out they were adopted in 2021. In a video posted on the platform, Stevie is seen mouthing to captions that read, ‘Youre my real dad right? am i adopted [sic]? I am your real dad. Sent an article of my biological dad’s death [sic]. im sorry they wouldn’t tell you about him. That must be so confusing for a little girl.’ Eminem never publicly acknowledged Stevie’s posts, and neither did his other children. In 2023, however, Eminem was seen spending time with Stevie and Hailie Jade, and they were seen video calling their dad alongside Hailie and Alaina.

And Kim…

She’s not his child. She’s his ex-wife. The two first met when they were teenagers in 1988, when Eminem was 15 and Kim was 13, and Debbie even took Kim in to live with her at one point. In her 2008 memoir, ‘My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, Debbie wrote, ‘Marshall arrived home from school with a tall, sulky blonde girl. He introduced her as Kim Scott and said she needed a place to stay. I was happy to help out. Kim said she was 15 and I had no reason to doubt that. In truth, she was so cute and busty that she could have passed for 17. As often happens with troubled children, Kim told some pretty tall tales. I looked on Kim as a challenge, someone I hoped I could give a better life to.’

The couple was married twice – first in 1999 before splitting in 2001, and then in 2006 before splitting for good only 3 months later. Despite the rocky relationship, Kim had kind words to say about her ex. In 2016, she said, ‘We’re really close friends, we’re just trying to raise our kids together and make it as normal for them as possible.’

It’s now time to…

…reflect. I remember exactly when I got to know of Eminem and his music. It was 2002, when my dad took me to see ‘8 Mile’, a movie which co-starred the late Brittany Murphy, and where Eminem’s hit song, ‘Lose Yourself’ was born. And speaking of ‘Lose Yourself’, the song earned the rapper his first Oscar. He skipped the biggest event in Hollywood because he was at home with Hailie Jade. He finally came to the Oscars to surprise audiences everywhere by performing the song in 2020.

I’ve religiously followed Eminem’s career since then. I know all of his songs by heart. I was so happy to see him back in the spotlight following his 2007 overdose. I used to think my favourite songs were ‘Lose Yourself’ and Mockingbird’, but now, it might as well be ‘Not Afraid’. As the lyrics go, ‘Cause ain’t no way I’ma let you stop me from causin’ mayhem/ When I say I’m a do somethin’/I do it/ I don’t give a damn what you think/ I’m doin’ this for me, so f*ck the world, feed it beans/ It’s gassed up, if it thinks it’s stoppin’ me/ I’ma be what I set out to be, without a doubt, undoubtedly.’

My life’s national anthem right there…

I always admired Eminem’s dedication to his family. His love for his children was clear. It’s always been evident that he was a father first and foremost, and everything else, including his career as a rapper came second. He came from a dysfunctional family. He didn’t even a father to look up to. His goal was to break the cycle, and he did just that. Alaina Marie was the first in the family to graduate college. Hailie Jade followed soon after. Even him almost dying of an overdose didn’t stop him from being a during father. It, of course, put a setback in his role, but his children never stopped loving him and looking up to him.

So how did he do it? One can only assume that these were the steps he took in his strategy:

• Become aware: Identify the dysfunctional roles of family members, including your own. 
• Set boundaries: Let others know how to treat you. 
• Practice self-care: Take care of yourself. 
• Develop coping strategies: Learn how to deal with dysfunctional family members. 
• Seek professional help: Consider therapy or family therapy. 
• Build a new support system: Surround yourself with people who support you. 
• Educate yourself: Learn about dysfunctional families. 
• Practice responding, not reacting: Respond in a new way instead of reacting to situations. 
• Forgive: Forgive the aggressor. 
• Focus on what you can control: Allow people to make their own decisions.

We don’t know how much of all of these steps he actually did to get to where he is now. Nevertheless, it’s clear that Eminem is your ultimate cycle breaker – a person that intentionally changes their multi-generational family patterns. It’s someone who sees an unhealthy cycle of behavior in their family of origin (meaning the family they grew up in) and intentionally works to break that cycle.

A cycle breaker looks different in every family. We shouldn’t be looking at Eminem as a poster child for a cycle breaker. Instead, we should look at him as an example of a cycle breaker; a great example, but an example nonetheless. With that being said, a wide number of behaviours and patterns can be encompassed. These are:

• A family pattern of physical, emotional, or psychological abuse (sometimes manifesting differently in different generations)
• A family history of addiction and substance use 
• A family history of struggling to handle big feelings like anger, overwhelm, and sadness 
• A family pattern of passive aggression over aggression that children then reproduce
• A family history of disordered eating, chronic dieting, or eating disorders
• A family value of achievement above all other things
• A family pattern of physical punishment for children
• Family enmeshment or disengagement that gets passed down

While thinking deep about your past, you start asking yourself investigative questions on how you can be better yourself for the future of your family to never repeat your past. These questions include:

• How did this behavior occur in my family?
• Who really embodied this?
• How did I experience it? 
• What did that feel like?
• What was the impact on my development?
• What were the benefits and drawbacks of this family pattern?
• How did it get passed down?

This can be an eye-opening experience for a person intending to break the cycle. What follows is the healing process, which can be the toughest part of the journey. This involves answering questions such as:

• How can I offer myself the things my family struggled to offer?
• What does it look like to come to terms with this history?
• Can I honor my family’s humanity—and is it possible they were doing their best?
• What does self-soothing look like when this old pattern comes up in my family now?

One must realize that it might be a solo journey to better one-self. Not everyone in the family will want to grow with you. Therefore, it’s important to prepare yourself to do it alone. And in addition to the psychological growth that comes with being a cycle breaker, a cycle-breaker is also tasked with learning new ways of being in the world. This learning curve can be steep, and involves answering questions like:

• What does shifting this pattern look like?
• What kind of pushback should I expect to receive?
• What are the hardest parts of changing this pattern?
• What skills do I need to learn?
• What do I need when I suffer a setback?

Eminem is a very controversial person. A lot of people dislike him. A lot of people hate him too. A lot of people hate him for his music, his politics, or whatever it is that they hate him for. Say what you will about Eminem as a person, but no one, and I mean no one, could ever deny that he’s a damn good father. After everything he’d endured and sacrificed, he succeeded. He gave his daughters and brother that life he wanted to give them; the life he never envisioned for himself. He dropped out of high school at 17 after failing 9th grade 3 times, and yet his daughters are college graduates. His kids also were the ones who inspired him to get sober after an overdose they almost killed him 18 years ago. Objectively, he’s a great father. You can love him, and you can hate him, but he’s a great father. And the way his children speak of him tells an entire story to the tale too.

None of us can control the environments we came from. What we can do, however is the environment and circumstances for our children. It’s not easy, but it certainly is possible. Eminem is just living proof that it CAN, in fact, be done. I don’t come anywhere near such a tragic circumstance as Eminem. But my husband and I do intend on breaking cycles for the sake of our son. My husband intends on being the best father he can be for him. He wants our son to experience having a father that’s fully there for him, which is something he never had growing up. He wants our son to feel loved, supported and nurtured without an agenda being there. Fully unconditional love. He doesn’t want to have the same relationship with our son as he did with his own father. He doesn’t want to make the same mistakes his own father did with him. He wants our son to feel like he belongs – belongs in our family, belongs in society. He wants him to feel like he’s good enough, always. If there’s anything my husband’s father taught him, it’s what not to be for his son, and that’s probably the greatest gift his father ever gave him – and me. I can honestly say I have the best father to my child. I don’t even have to describe the love my husband and my son share for each other, and I’m so thankful for that.

‘Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you.’