Publication: The Detroit News

Datestamp: 11/08/2002
Edition: Two Dot SAP
Section: Front
Page: 01
You can reach Tony Manolatos at (586)
Type:
468-0520 or tmanolatos@detnews.com.
Column:
Note:

Eminem doubles as rap icon, doting dad

Devoted family man and down-to-earth neighbor belies his bad-boy
image
Byline: Tony Manolatos
CLINTON TOWNSHIP -- Eight days before the release of "8 Mile," the movie's star walked through his
neighborhood at dusk wearing a white hockey mask and navy sweats. The hood of his sweatshirt was up.

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, aka Eminem, wasn't performing one of his twisted raps. He was trick-or-treating
with Kimberly Mathers, his former wife, and 6-year-old Hailie Jade, the couple's daughter.

Yellow mums, stacks of hay and pumpkins line the steps leading to the front door of their palatial abode in
Clinton Township inside the Manchester Estates, an exclusive gated community of 27 homes.

Three festive Halloween displays -- each with a smiling scarecrow -- dot Eminem's front yard. An indoor
pool and a recording studio are inside.

It's here, away from the adoring fans, the music stages and the movie sets, that Eminem, a 30-year-old
multimillionaire, leads a somewhat ho-hum everyday life in sharp contrast to his movie and stage persona.

But there is a dark side to the dishwasher-turned-icon's everyday existence.

Eminem, the foul-mouthed high school dropout from Warren whose rise to fame has been both vitriolic and
meteoric, struggles to live a normal life, to find people who won't betray him, to understand his critics and to
stay safe, said Betty Kresin, who stays in touch with her grandson mostly by phone.

"He has to wear a bullet-proof vest sometimes because of threats from rappers and people who used to work
for him," Kresin said by telephone from her home in St. Joseph, Mo. "He should be sitting on Easy Street.
But instead, he's still struggling."

It's dichotomies like this -- bad-boy rapper walking door-to-door with his family on Halloween -- that reveal
the "real" Eminem, known as "Em" or "Marshall" to family and friends.

The guy next door

"Marshall is a very good father and a very nice person -- very down-to-earth," said Cathy Roberts, 45,
Eminem's next-door neighbor.

Eminem doubles as rap icon, doting dad 1

Another neighbor, Dave Crorey, said the Eminem he has met belies his image.

"He seems a little timid," said Crorey, 57, a retired businessman. "He's nothing like he's portrayed -- a wild
kid and all that. He seems a little on the shy side."

But in a recording studio and on stage, he advocates rape, disparages homosexuals and snubs Middle
America. Much of his music is too salacious for radio play, but he's on the air at least once an hour in Metro
Detroit.

Members of Congress attack him -- and his lyrics. On his most recent album, "The Eminem Show," the
rapper refers to himself as "thug-like."

But Eminem is no more a thug than the doctors and businessmen who are his neighbors. After bolting from
his more modest $450,000 home on Hayes in Sterling Heights in search of a place where neighborhood
children wouldn't steal his mailbox and leave M&M wrappers on his lawn, he bought this redish-brown
brick colonial for $1.48 million in August 2000.

Neighbors are clear on one thing: He fits in well.

In Eminem's circular driveway near a fountain, his uncle, Jack B. Schmitt, said his nephew's privacy is
important to him. It's why he declines most interview requests.

"He can't go to the store because he'd be mobbed," said Schmitt, who lives with Mathers, Hailie, Schmitt's
wife, Betti, and the couple's three boys.

The rapper -- who lyrically dogs suburban kids who say they're from Detroit -- appears to respect his
neighbors and his secluded neighborhood.

"The guy next door -- the one worried about a rapper moving into the sub -- can't say enough good things
about him," Crorey said. "Eminem brought Mariah Carey over to meet his family. He just loves him."

Carey and Eminem dated briefly about a year ago.

Family man

J.R. "Jen" Watkins, who describes herself as "Eminem's former best friend," dishes the dirt about him in her
new book, "Cleaning Out My Closet." The book chronicles the rapper's life with his wife, Kimberly -- and
others -- between May 2001 and May 2002.

"He's always seeing someone," Watkins said.

To Watkins, Eminem is only Eminem in front of the camera or in recording studios. At home, she said he's a
big kid who enjoys playing with his daughter and making her laugh.

"He's a very good daddy," Watkins said. "He's trying to give Hailie more of a normal life than he had."

Watkins, who grew up in Warren and was good friends with Kimberly Mathers for 20 years, said she
basically ran Eminem's house after Kim and he divorced in 2001 after a stormy two-year marriage.

Devoted family man and down-to-earth neighbor belies his bad-boyimage 2

She said Eminem and Kim don't live together now but are back together as a couple, leading Eminem to cut
ties with her. Eminem's publicists won't say whether Kim and Eminem are considering remarriage and he
won't talk about it other than to say: "Kim is back in my life."

When Watkins was in Eminem's life, there were weeks when she watched Hailie -- who grew close with
Watkins' two young girls, Kayla, 14, and Katie, 7 -- every day while Eminem worked on "8 Mile."

She picked up after the kids and cooked spaghetti or tacos -- Eminem's favorite food other than cereal --
while he would run around the house acting goofy. He apparently does a pretty good Kermit the Frog.

Watkins said it wasn't odd to see Eminem moon friends or family members or to see him take time out for
Hailie whenever she wanted his attention.

"If he's downstairs working in the studio and she goes down and says, 'Daddy, I want you to come jump with
me,' he'll put everyone on hold while he goes outside and jumps on the trampoline with her," Watkins said.

Money-wise, Eminem isn't showy or ostentatious and the wads of cash he spends is on others, Watkins said.

But he does partake in the finer things in life. He has been photographed in monogrammed dress shirts with
cuff links and a tie. On his wedding finger is a diamond and platinum ring -- a gift from Hailie that spells
"DAD" -- that friends swear he never takes off.

He drives a leased Mercedes-Benz, but likes Fords. He recently sold a Mustang. And the uncle who lives
with him drives a new Ford Excursion.

On trips close to home, Eminem prefers riding in Fords. "We would normally take my (Ford) Expedition to
the movies or Dairy Queen because he hates driving and we could fit all the kids in," Watkins said.

In the truck, the kids always listen to Eminem CDs.

"He turns the volume down when he starts swearing," Watkins said.

Genius or thug?

The music is why millions of kids adore him, parents loathe him and critics revere him.

"He has a lot of repressed anger and when he raps about that everyone always hates on him," said Stephania
Synod, 17, a fan and a senior at Warren's Lincoln High School, where Marshall Mathers dropped out after
failing the ninth grade in 1989.

To Synod, Mathers is a role model.

"Coming from this neighborhood, we understand how it is," she said. "It's cool knowing someone coming
from south Warren can become something great. It kind of gives me hope. And when he talks about how
much he loves his daughter, it just shows that he has a heart and he's not all hard-core rap."

Len Lupo, a Shelby Township father of a teen-ager, isn't a fan of the music or the man.

"What he portrays on his videos and music -- it's too vulgar," said Lupo, 52, an auto engineer who lived
across the street from Kimberley Mathers for six months when she split with Eminem. "I just don't care for

Devoted family man and down-to-earth neighbor belies his bad-boyimage 3

him and what he represents."

Kim Osorio, editor of The Source, the nation's best-selling music magazine, sings Eminem's praises.

"He knows how to command a microphone," Osorio said from her New York office. "He knows how to ride
the beat. His skills are above average and he's what's hot right now."

Eminem's music has meaning, Osorio said.

"Hip-hop artists speak from experience," she said. "But as with any artist, it shouldn't all be taken literally."

Troubles fuel lyrics

Yellow notepads of raps or lyrics in progress can be found all over his house, said former friend Watkins.
Sarcasm and anger often end up on those pads, but the notes are hard to read because he writes so small, she
said.

The lyrics are why Eminem has been pegged as homophobic, a misogynist and worse. The criticism bothers
him. He says so in some of his songs. But criticism also fuels him. He says that, too.

And usually, if someone objects to something, he turns around with a bigger dose of it because he knows it
will spark more controversy and more record sales.

"In his words, 'No publicity is bad publicity,' " Watkins said.

Kresin, who talks regularly with her grandson on the phone, worries about the dark clouds that have dogged
him:

* The pale, frail teen was bullied and beat up in school. Once, he spent 10 days in a hospital after a classmate
attacked him.

* When Eminem was 19, his best friend and uncle, Ronnie Polkingharn, died from a gunshot wound. Betty
Kresin's youngest son was the same age as Mathers. Polkingharn turned Mathers on to rap music and the two
were like brothers.

* Eminem's mother, Debbie Nelson, filed two defamation lawsuits, one in 1999 for $10 million and another
in 2000 for $1 million. Both suits, settled for a total of $25,000, were based on comments the rapper made
about his mother and childhood, describing her as strung out on prescription drugs and addicted to bingo.

* Last year, Eminem was sentenced to probation -- two years in Macomb County and one year in Oakland
County -- stemming from two arrests on the same day in June 2000.

That evening, Eminem pistol-whipped a man who kissed his wife outside a Warren bar. Earlier that day,
goaded by insults from a rival rap group, he brandished a gun outside a Royal Oak stereo shop.

"Who hasn't tried to hurt the boy?" Kresin said.

Dichotomy continues

The film "8 Mile," a story about making it in the rap world, is loosely based on what Eminem went through in

Devoted family man and down-to-earth neighbor belies his bad-boyimage 4

the mid-1990s. America's best rapper -- Chris Rock gave him the label -- grew up poor.

He gained recognition in rap and hip-hop circles because of his link to Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre
Young. A rap disciple, Dr. Dre co-produced "The Slim Shady LP," Eminem's major label debut. The record
was released in 1999. Two years earlier, Eminem was working as a cook and dishwasher at Gilbert's Lodge in
St. Clair Shores.

He met Dr. Dre in 1997 in Los Angeles at the Rap Olympics. Eminem was in Los Angeles because Detroiter
Mark Bass was listening to his car radio one Friday and heard Eminem sing. Bass, an unknown record
producer at the time, called the radio station and the deejay put him on the phone.

The raps on "The Slim Shady LP" are raunchy, daring, creative and revealing, The Source's Osorio said. On
his next album, "The Marshall Mathers LP," Eminem lashes out at gays, parents and anyone else who
criticized his first album.

In "Who Knew," a sarcastic Eminem bashes lax parents and wonders how people can say he should clean up
his lyrics when kids are watching gratuitous violence in movies.

On his most recent album, "The Eminem Show," Eminem continues to reveal more about himself. True,
some of his lyrics still are laced with profanity and there's more righteous indignation, but Eminem also is
empathetic and almost apologetic in response to criticism.

On "Sing for the Moment," a song that incorporates Aerosmith's "Dream On," Eminem declares: "It's all
political, if my music is literal and I'm a criminal, how ... can I raise a little girl? I couldn't. I wouldn't be fit
to."

Copyright:
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Keyword: CELEBRITIES
Id: archive~8518580
Words:
Slug:
Eminem is known to his neighbors in Manchester Estates as a shy, retiring young man who loves
Caption: to play with his daughter, Hailie Jade.Eminem acknowledges fans on his way into Detroit's
Phoenix Theatre Thursday for the "8 Mile" premiere.

Devoted family man and down-to-earth neighbor belies his bad-boyimage 5