Debbie was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier and she took her last breath in St. Joseph, Missouri. Multiple outlets reported the news of her ill health in September this year. Surprisingly the singer did not pay visit visit to his mother in the hospital even after she was told that she had little time left.
Deborah Rae Nelson was born in 1955 on a military base. Her autobiography gave some insights of her early life. She was brought up in a large disturbed family.She had to witness her parents’ separation at a tender age of 10 which made her provide for the family being the eldest of five siblings.
She married when she was 16 :- Debbie Nelson
She married when she was 16 to Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr., and gave birth to “Lose Yourself” star Eminem, named Marshall Mathers III, in the year 1972. The spouses moved their ways apart after a few years which left Debbie alone to look after her son all by herself . Both mother and son shared a strained relationship filled with ups and downs over the years. The difficult relationship between the mother and son was compounded by poverty.
However this situation came as a blessing in disguise for Eminem as it became fodder for the various blockbuster songs after he became a popular rockstar face in the late 1990s. Like in the song “The Slim Shady LP” eminem referred to his mother’s drug use and physical abuse in the tracks including “My Name Is” and “Brain Damage”. She had filed a suit against defamation demanding $10 million, however she got only $25K. “Lose Yourself”, a soundtrack from the movie ‘8 mile’ made a huge sale of more than ten million copies and bagged two Grammy awards in the year 2004.
The rapper abused his mother
The rapper abused his mother for neglecting and abusing him in his famous song “Cleaning Out My Closet”, “My Mom” to the emotional “Headlights”. The soundtrack was released in 2013 in which Eminem was asking for an apology to her mother.
She celebrated her son’s success from a distance when the singer got Rock and Roll Hall of FAme in 2022 by congratulating him online. She had posted online saying that she loved Eminem and knew that he would succeed in life. It had been a long way for Eminem to reach where he was and that she was so proud of him. Dennis Dennehy, one of Eminem’s representative, gave confirmation of her death.
Eminem lost his father in 2019. Along with Eminem, Debbie was survived by her son Nathan Mathers and many grandchildren. She was married and divorced twice. She ran a taxi service in St. Joseph where she was living with, John Briggs, her last husband,.
RIP.
