Formal Booking Requisition

Talent Dossier

Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Deborah "Debbie" Nelson (1955–2024) and Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. (1951–2019). His mother nearly died during her 73-hour labor with him. Eminem's parents were in a band called Daddy Warbucks, playing in Ramada Inns along the Dakotas–Montana border before they separated. His father abandoned his family when Eminem was a year and a half old, and his mother raised him herself in poverty. He wrote letters to his father, but Nelson said that they all came back marked "return to sender". Eminem and his mother shuttled among states, rarely staying in one house for more than a year or two and mostly living with family members. Locations included St. Joseph; Savannah, Missouri; Kansas City; Warren, Michigan; and Roseville, Michigan, before settling in Detroit when Eminem was 12.For much of his youth, Eminem and his mother lived in a bungalow-style house in a working-class, primarily Black neighborhood in Detroit. He and Debbie were one of three white households on their block, and Eminem was beaten several times by Black youths.His mother had a son named Nathan "Nate" Kane Samara in 1986 with then-boyfriend Fred Samara.In 2013, the State of Michigan demolished his childhood home after it was damaged by arson.