Eminem doesn’t talk about his family that much to the media, but he has said he has never met his father. His estranged father, Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. has died at the age of 67. He apparently suffered a heart attack while at home near Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Eminem’s real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III and does not keep his grudge against his father a secret. The rapper has frequently rapped about his father abandoning him in his songs such as My Name Is and Cleanin’ Out My Closet.
According to Eminem’s mother Debbie, his father married her when he was 22 and she was 15, they had their son two years later, and then split up shortly after. Eminem and his mom settled in Detroit with her family while his father moved to California and had two other kids. Eminem has said he wrote letters to his dad when he was a child but they always came back “return to sender”.
In 2001, Bruce decided he wanted to reach out to his son and published a letter to his son in a newspaper explaining his side of the story. Eminem apparently never got in contact with his father to create a better relationship. In his song Cleanin’ Out My Closet he rapped “…I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye. No, I don’t, on second thought, I just f**kin’ wished he would die. I look at Hailie, and I couldn’t picture leavin’ her side.”
From those lyrics, you can tell that Eminem wants to be a better father to his daughter than his own father was to him. It’s very unfortunate that this was the relationship between Eminem and his father and that they can never fix it. But, it seems like Eminem has learned from this experience and has grown to become a stronger and better person for his daughter.
