Eminem’s mother, Debbie Nelson, who inspired the lyrics for songs ranging from the scathing “My Mom” to the heartfelt “Headlights,” has died. She was 69.
Dennis Dennehy, a spokesperson for the Grammy-winning “Rap God” star, confirmed Nelson’s death to The Times on Tuesday. He did not disclose additional details or provide any comment from the rapper.
Nelson died Monday night at a hospital in St. Joseph, Mo., according to TMZ, which first reported her death. Reports about Nelson’s cancer first surfaced in September.
Nelson was 18 years old when she and high school sweetheart Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. welcomed Eminem (born Marshall Mathers III) on Oct. 17, 1972, in St. Joseph. A few years later, the spouses separated, leaving Nelson to care for their son by herself. Mother and son moved frequently but settled in Detroit.
Throughout his childhood, Eminem and his mother endured a fraught relationship — exacerbated by poverty — that eventually became fodder for multiple songs after he came to fame in the late 1990s. For his sophomore album, “The Slim Shady LP,” Eminem references his mother’s drug use and physical violence in tracks including “My Name Is” and “Brain Damage.”
“She beat me over the head with the remote control / Opened a hole and my whole brain fell out of my skull,” he raps in in the latter. “I picked it up and screamed / ‘Look, b—, what have you done?’”
Nelson took legal action against her son in September 1999 for his album, alleging defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress through his lyrics, according to ABC News. At the time, she sought $11 million in damages, but a Macomb County judge awarded her $25,000 instead.
Despite the legal fallout, Eminem continued to tap his relationship with his mother for other songs, including 2002’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” and 2009’s “My Mom.” The latter centers on her alleged drug use and how he picked up similar habits as a result.
“Valium was in everything, food I ate, the water that I drank … peas in my plate / She sprinkled just enough of it to season my steak,” he raps. Elsewhere in the song, Eminem describes more rampant drug use, being forced to eat food as a kid and the realization he’d become a drug addict. The rapper, who has long been open about his struggles with addiction, celebrated 16 years of sobriety this year.
In 2008, Nelson published her memoir, “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,” where she discussed their fractured relationship and alleged she and her siblings had been abused by their stepfather when she was a child. The same year, she told the Village Voice in an interview she was open to making amends with her estranged son.
“I’m not ever gonna give up on my kids. I won’t give up on anybody,” she said at the time. “There’s hope for everybody. It’s a matter of just basically swallowing your pride. It’s like a cashed check. It’s over, it’s done. You need to move on.”
A year later, during a 2009 appearance on music show “106 & Park,” Eminem confirmed he was not on speaking terms with his mother but said he had gained a “better understanding of what she was going through” over the years.
Their years-long feud seemingly simmered down in 2013, when Eminem released “Headlights,” with Nate Ruess, frontman for indie pop band fun. Seemingly a letter to his mother, “Headlights” hears Eminem reference “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” and contemplate, “Did I take it too far?”
“I don’t hate you ’cause, Ma, you’re still beautiful to me, ’cause you’re my mom,” he raps, before recalling the tense environment of their home and his father’s abandonment of them both. He also voices regret for his searing song and proclaims, “I love you, Debbie Mathers.”
In 2022, Nelson congratulated her son on X (formerly Twitter) for his 2022 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “I could not let this day go by without congratulating you on your induction into the Hall of Fame,” Nelson said, according to People.
“I love you very much. I knew you’d get there. It’s been a long ride,” she added. “I’m very, very proud of you.”
Nelson was born in 1955 on a Kansas military base, the eldest child of a “large dysfunctional family,” she wrote in her memoir. After her parents divorced, she took on the responsibility to help provide for her younger siblings. Nelson is also the mother of Nathan Samra-Mathers. Eminem gained custody of his younger half-brother and then raised him after Nelson put Nathan in foster care as a child.
Nelson is preceded in death by her ex-husband, who died in June 2019. In addition to her two sons, she is survived by Eminem’s children Alaina Marie Scott, Hailie Jade and Stevie Laine.
Times staff writer Malia Mendez contributed to this report.
Spoiler- free Pushpa-2 Live Updates from USA Premiere Show – Keep Refreshing This Page :
Director: Sukumar
Cinematography: Miroslaw Kuba Brozek
Music: Devi Sri Prasad
Producer: Naveen Yerneni
Yalamanchili Ravi Shankar
Production:Mythri Movie Makers
Sukumar Writings
This year’s crop of Oscar international film submissions reminds us that danger is seemingly everywhere. It can be in the context of a reformed drug lord musical (“Emilia Pérez”), a globe-altering flood (“Flow”), or a family being torn apart by an authoritarian society (“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”). The three films below prove that great performances, incredible music and a sliver of hope can transcend the weight of universal fear.
Swedish filmmaker Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel may be the grandson of legendary director Ingmar Bergman, but for a portion of his life, he worked as an assistant teacher in an after-school program with 6-year-old children and their parents. Those experiences formed part of the inspiration for “Armand,” which won the Camera d’Or (first feature award) at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
The stylish drama focuses on the ramifications of an altercation between two elementary-school-age kids. As the school staff attempts to quell the matter, personal conflicts between the two sets of parents threaten to derail any potential resolution. Tøndel’s initial inspiration wasn’t the conflict itself but the single mother portrayed by “The Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve.
“I had this woman in my mind who was totally smart, manipulative, strong in one moment and then completely helpless in the next,” Tøndel says. “And then I heard a story about two 6-year-old boys on a camping trip. One of them said to the other something quite adult-like. And my imagination started spinning based on that.”
As the rollercoaster deliberations between the parties intensify, Reinsve’s character experiences what can only be described as an emotional breakdown. It’s a breathtaking moment — noted in the screenplay — that finds her laughing and crying on screen for almost 10 minutes.
As Tøndel recalls, “Renate read the script and asked me, ‘How long is a long time?’ And I said, ‘Around seven minutes.’ And she said, ‘It’s impossible, I can’t do it.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you can.’ And then we never talked about the scene again. And then she came on set, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. She laughed for a whole day, 10 hours straight.”
Admitting it was “too many times,” he adds, “she got five days off after the scene.”
Mo Chara, left, DJ Próvai and Móglaí Bap make up the band in ‘Kneecap.’
(Helen Sloan / Sony Pictures Classic)
Rich Peppiatt had been in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for only two weeks when he saw a sign promoting an Irish hip-hop night. Needing a respite from a crying newborn, he stuck his head in a bar and saw three guys, a band known as Kneecap, throwing baggies of white powder into the crowd. Every other word was an expletive, and he didn’t understand what they were saying, but their energy and talent were electric.
“I did not realize there was this young, vibrant community of Irish language speakers in a metropolitan hub like Belfast,” Peppiatt says. “I think as a filmmaker when you find a precinct that feels like it’s not had a light shot on it you’ve got the start of something. You’re going to go, ‘OK, well, if this is news to me and I live here, it’s going to be news to millions of potential people out there.’”
The band includes Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí, all of whom play versions of themselves in the appropriately titled “Kneecap.” The fact they were wary when Peppiatt initially approached them was understandable. Even with the amount of success they were having in their native land, hooking up with an untested filmmaker didn’t make much sense.
“You’re an unsigned local band. You’ve never made an album, right? And you are rapping a language no one speaks. It doesn’t exactly scream Hollywood blockbuster, right? They were a bit dubious that I could actually see it through,” Peppiatt admits. What changed his fortune was “that night one pint of Guinness turned into eight or nine pints of Guinness, and then it was back to their house afterward. And that was my big test: Can I keep pace with Kneecap, and am I not a cop? That was the other thing they say is, ‘Make sure he is not a cop.’”
Spoiler: A world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, U.S. distribution and Ireland selecting the movie as its international film submission, pretty much proves that Peppiatt was not a cop.
Juan Jesús Varela stars in “Sujo.”
(Ximena Amann / Sundance Institute)
Over the past decade, Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero have worked together on several projects, but “Sujo” is their first directorial collaboration. Considering the film has earned much critical acclaim and won the world cinema grand jury prize for a dramatic film at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, the duo may want to make their partnership behind the camera a regular thing.
Set in contemporary Mexico, “Sujo” centers on the title character, portrayed by relative newcomer Juan Jesús Varela, a young man hidden by his protective aunt from the prying eyes of the local cartel bosses. As his cousins get swept up in the cartel business, Sujo escapes to Mexico City, where he hopes to pursue his dreams of academic study. Despite the expansive urban environment, he soon learns how difficult it is to hide from your past. Especially when your father was a legendary sicario (hit man).
Valadez says they wanted Sujo to show the audience the thin line between victims and perpetrators and how someone can transition from one to the other depending on the social conditions.
“We have a father that is a perpetrator, but at the same time is a loving father who [passes along] both things to his son,” Valadez says. “So, this son has those paths combined, the ability to become a loving man, but also the burden of violence in his life. What we want to say with this film is that even the people who commit crimes, who become perpetrators, were at some point vulnerable kids to which we still have a debt as a society.”
The duo had been scouting locations for 12 years and had some connections within the community that kept them safe. That being said, over the last five to six years Guanajuato has been one of the most dangerous states in Mexico. And they did have an encounter with cartel members trying to collect protection money.
“It was scary,” Valadez admits. “We got support from the local authorities, so we went there unharmed. But of course, it makes you think about what you should do as a production company to keep your crew safe because we have a lot of young people with us — 20, 22, 23 years old — and that’s a lot of responsibility.”
Allu Arjun, who won the National Award for his performance in the first instalment, returns in the lead alongside Rashmika Mandanna reprising her role as Srivalli. The film also features Fahadh Faasil as Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat. According to reports, the film’s narrative will delve deeper into the conflict between Pushpa and Shekhawat while exploring his rise to power.
The first film in the franchise grossed an estimated Rs 400 crore globally. Its success laid the groundwork for ‘Pushpa 2’, which is already generating record-breaking advance sales. According to box office reports on sacnilk.com, the movie is well on its way to record a Rs 300 crore weekend at the global box office. With advance day 1 sales crossing Rs 80 crore, buzz is that the film will beat the lifetime collections of ‘Pushpa: The Rise’ in its debut week at the box office. The movie is poised to surpass collections of blockbuster hits including Prabhas’ ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ and even Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Jawan’ and ‘Pathaan’.
Trade analysts have even boldly predicted that ‘Pushpa 2’ could just become the highest-grossing Indian film of 2024.
The huge box office numbers have been linked directly to the hype around the film and also the higher ticket pricing. The Andhra Pradesh government approved the price hike of the tickets for the film, calling it a “progressive decision”. This move backed by the government, has made ticket pricing for ‘Pushpa 2’ the highest for a Telugu film.
Despite the rise in ticket prices, reports state that shows are selling out in multiple regions, with fans eager to experience the cinematic extravaganza on its opening day.
Stay tuned to this ETimes live blog for all the real-time updates on the release, movie reviews, audience reactions, box office numbers, and more about ‘Pushpa 2: The Rule’.
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