Photo: Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com
When Marshall Mathers was 15 and Kimberly Scott was 13, they met at a youth home. He was rapping while she watched from the corner. Eminem later recalled he was "standing on top of their coffee table with [his] shirt off, with a Kangol on, mocking the words to LL Cool J’s 'I'm Bad.'"
A few months after they met, Kim moved in with Eminem and his mom, Debbie Nelson. Nelson wrote in her memoir, "Marshall arrived home from school with a tall, sulky blonde girl. He introduced her as Kim Scott and said she needed a place to stay. I was happy to help out."
According to Nelson, Kim wasn't communicative, and tension existed between the two from the beginning.
Photo: Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com
Debbie Nelson believed Kim was 15 when they met. Once she found out that Kim was 13, she actively discouraged the girl from getting together with her son. Nelson writes, "I always made sure she was tucked up on the couch outside my bedroom door every night. I did not want her sneaking upstairs to Marshall."
Despite Nelson's disapproval, Eminem and Kim maintained an on-again, off-again relationship until they married for the first time in 1999.
Shortly after the relationship began, Eminem dropped out of high school, and his mother asked her son and Kim to leave. The couple lived in poverty; as Kim told Rolling Stone, "The neighborhoods we lived in f*cking sucked."
In December 1995, Kim gave birth to their daughter, Hailie. The family lived in a dangerous neighborhood, as Eminem described to Rolling Stone. He mentioned how, after taking their TV and VCR, one thief came back to make a sandwich:
He left the peanut butter, jelly - all the sh*t - out and didn’t steal nothing... But then he came back again and took everything but the couches and beds. The pillows, clothes, silverware - everything.
Briefly, they moved back in with Eminem's mom, but he claims, "My mother did a lot of dope and sh*t - a lot of pills - so she had mood swings." Though Debbie Nelson denies any drug abuse, the couple moved out of the house. Kim and Hailie then lived with her parents, and Eminem lived with friends.
12 August 2021, 16:21
Kim Scott has been in the public eye for decades, especially due to her once being the wife of the Detriot legendary rapper Eminem.
While Scott (real name Kimberly Anne Scott) and Eminem have now divorced, the pair were teenage lovers, who met in 1989. They eventually got married in 1999, but divorced just two years later.
But, who is Kim Scott? Here's everything we know about her.
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Kimberly is most known in the media for being Eminem's ex-wife.
Their tumultuous relationship was well documented in the 90s and early noughties in the tabloids.
The now 46-year-old was born on January 9, 1975 in a tough part of Michigan.
Kim and her twin sister Dawn reportedly ran away from their home in 1988 and moved into a youth shelter outside of Detroit, Michigan.
Kim Scott.Picture: Getty
Scott's twin sister, Dawn – who tragically died of a heroin overdose in 2016.
The death of her sister hit her hard. She also had a very toxic relationship with Eminem, where he even went as far as rapping about murdering her on the track '97 Bonnie & Clyde'.
While staying true to where she grew up, Kim Scott now lives in a she now lives in a massive home in the suburbs of Macomb, Michigan.
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What Kim does for a work is unknown, however she does have an estimated worth of around £1.5M.
This is believed to be mainly from her former marriage to Eminem.
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Kim and Eminem were childhood sweethearts.They met in 1987 when both were just teenagers.
The couple began a romance that would last through the '90s, resulting in the birth of their daughter, Hailie, in 1995.
Kimberly Mathers was charged with a DUI and went court for violating her probation on drug charges.Picture: Getty
Eminem and Scott met in 1988 at a house party when they were teenagers and began dating through high school.
In 1995, the couple welcomed a daughter, Hailie Jade. Four years later, Scott and Em got married.
In 1995, Eminem and Kimberly Scott welcomed their biological daughter, Hailie Jade.Picture: Instagram/@hailiejade
The pair had an on/off romance. They got married in 1999 and divorced in 2001.
However, the pair remarried in 2006. They then decided to divorce again after a few months.
As part of their settlement, Scott reportedly receives more than $50,000 from her Em, in annual payments.
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Police attended the 46-year-old’s Michigan home on July 30 after receiving reports of a suicidal person, TMZ has reported.
Kim Scott was reportedly defensive when police arrived and eventually restrained.
She was then taken to hospital for medical and psychological evaluation, before returning to her home for recovery.
Eminem and Kim Scott has an on-off relationship until their divorce in 2006.Picture: Getty
Scott has previously attempted suicide in October 2015.
In an interview with Detroit’s Channel 955 at the time, she said: “I never expected to make it out of that alive."
"I apologized immensely. I did not even expect to make it through that, and I told [police] that I tried to do this on purpose.”
Giving props to Eminem for his help after the overdose, she said: “He’s been real supportive. We’re really close.“We’re just trying to raise our kids together and make it as normal for them as possible.”
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Kim Scott and Eminem share one biological daughter, Hailie Jade.
It is rumoured that Eminem adopted Kim's daughter, Whitney. from a previous relationship.
Kimberly Anne Mathers.Picture: Getty
The former couple also adopted a third daughter, Alana, who was the daughter of Kim's sister Dawn, who later died of a drug overdose.
Kimberly is also mother to a son Parker Scott from another relationship she had.
Eminem’s ex-wife, Kim Scott, has battled depression, addiction and more than her fair share of grief in her 46 years.
The mother-of-four was rushed to hospital this week after attempting to take her own life which followed the death of her mum, Kathy Sluck, at the age of 65.
The tragedy is the latest bump in a troubled life that saw Kim run away from home at 13, claiming she had been abused by her stepfather, and deal with her twin sister’s drug addiction and death by overdose at 41.
She had a tempestuous relationship with rapper Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, who sang disturbing lyrics about her, including in the song Kim where he depicted himself murdering her.
She has attempted suicide previously and also battled depression and addiction throughout her adult life.
Before her latest suicide attempt, Kim posted a heartfelt message to her mum who died on July 23, writing: “You’re all I had left Momma.”
She went on: “I can’t imagine this without you! I love you Momma!!! Kiss my dad and sister for me.”
Here we look Kim Scott’s brave battle and how she’s tried to overcome the adversity she has faced.
Ran away at 13 to escape ‘abusive’ stepdad
According to Eminem, the couple met at a house party when he was 15 and Kim was 13.
“I’m standing on top of their coffee table with my shirt off, with a Kangol on, mocking the words to LL Cool J’s I’m Bad. And I turn around and she’s at the door smoking,” he said.
Born in Warren, Michigan, Kim and twin sister Dawn both left home at 13, allegedly to escape an alcoholic stepdad.
After running away from home she was taken in by Eminem’s mum, Debbie Nelson, who described her as a “tall, sulky blonde girl” in her memoir, My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem.
Debbie says the teenager opened up to her, claiming she had fled an abusive home.
“[She said she] had no idea who their real father was, and claimed to have been sexually abused by her stepfather,” Debbie wrote.
“Now, as often happens with troubled children, Kim told some pretty tall tales … I looked on Kim as a challenge, someone I hoped I could give a better life to.”
Homeless and pregnant by 21
Romance blossomed between the teenagers, but after Eminem dropped out of school to pursue a rap career, his mum told them to leave.
The pair were forced to live hand to mouth in poverty-stricken areas where drug use was rife and burglaries common.
“I went through four TVs and five VCRs in two years,” Eminem told Rolling Stone.
Kim was just 21 when she gave birth to Hailie Jade on Christmas Day 1995. The family moved back into Eminem’s mum’s trailer but the rapper claimed it was impossible to live there because of Debbie’s drug habit.
“My mother did a lot of dope and sh*t, a lot of pills – so she had mood swings,” he told Rolling Stone.
“She’d go to bed cool, then wake up like, ‘Motherf***ers, get out!’”
Debbie has always denied those allegations.
Murder fantasy in lyrics
The couple’s problems and the pressures of parenthood took their toll and caused frequent splits.
It was during one break that the rapper’s violent alter ego Slim Shady was born.
In a track on his breakthrough album, which was originally titled Just The Two Of Us, but was later retitled 97 Bonnie & Clyde, he fantasises about murdering Kim and dumping her body in the sea with the help of toddler Hailie who appears on the recording.
“I lied to Kim and told her I was taking Hailie to Chuck E. Cheese that day,” he said.
“But I took her to the studio. When she found out I used our daughter to write a song about killing her, she f***ing blew. We had just got back together for a couple of weeks.”
Despite the constant conflict, the couple married on June 14, 1999, shortly before Eminem’s first major tour with Dr Dre.
But her husband’s fame had an adverse effect on Kim’s mental health.
“When Marshall’s first tour started is when his ego just went ‘poof’,” she told US TV’s Dr Keith Ablow.
“Like he was God, that’s what he thought.
“I was just told that I should be grateful that he still talks to me, you know how many women throw themselves at him. And I just pretty much felt like a piece of crap.”
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At one gig, in 2000, Kim watched as he sang Kim – another abusive song which contains the lyrics “bleed, b**ch, bleed” – while punching a nude blow-up doll made up to look like her.
“Seeing the crowd’s response and everybody cheering, singing the words and laughing and it just felt like everyone was staring at me,” she told Ablow.
“I knew that it was about me and that night I went home and I tried to commit suicide,” she said.
Shortly afterwards, Eminem attacked rapper John Guerra, allegedly whipping him with a pistol, after Kim was seen kissing him.
After just a year of marriage the couple split, finalising their divorce in 2001. Kim wanted $15 million in compensation for “the intentional infliction of emotional distress” over the abusive lyrics.
The pair came to a settlement – with Kim receiving and undisclosed lump sum and $94,000 a year – and agreed on joint custody of Hailie.
Married for 41 days
Kim went on to have another daughter, Whitney, with tattoo artist Eric Hartter. (Hartter died in 2019 of a suspected overdose.)
But that relationship didn’t last and she rekindled her romance with Eminem. The rapper adopted Whitney as his own.
At the time, Kim’s sister Dawn was struggling with drug addiction, so Eminem and Kim also took in her daughter, Aliana, who they later adopted. They also took in Eminem’s younger half-brother, Nate.
The pair tied the knot again in 2006, but Kim was reluctant to go through with it.
“Even on that day I said, ‘Let’s just go through the ceremony but not sign the marriage licence.’ I was just afraid of what would happen if we had to go through a divorce, our kids. And then 41 days later, February 25, Marshall left,” she said.
Kim went on to have another child – a son, Parker – although little is known about his father.
Depression and drug battles
Kim has admitted she battled depression and drug addiction after her split with Eminem, taking cocaine and being caught drunk behind the wheel.
She has been arrested numerous times for drug possession.
Eminem has also spoken out about his addiction to prescription pills, such as Vicodin and Valium.
In an interview in 2015, she said people think “just because we have money, that it makes us happy”.
“Yeah, I can pay bills. Yeah, I can get my kids whatever they ask for and it’s great to see them happy. But you lose friends, you lose family, you have no one you can trust and you can speak to,” she said.
Setback after sister’s overdose
In January 2016, Kim’s twin sister Dawn Scott was found dead from a heroin overdose in the Motor City Trailer Park.
Dawn – who had been homeless for two years – had slammed her sister for not helping her out, despite having millions.
But her death hit Kim hard and she left an emotional message to “my sweet, beautiful sister who lost her way”.
In the tribute on the funeral home website she wrote: “Half of me is gone – I kept a light lit for her, hoping she’d find her way back to me.”
The tragedy tipped her back into depression and she later revealed: “Honestly, I was starting to do better. After the death of my sister I had to go look at her dead in that trailer and just everything that was being said about her. It just hurts and now this.”
She added that Eminem had been “very supportive” of her.
“We are very close friends; we are just trying to raise our kids together and make it as normal for them as possible.”
How they get on now
Eminem and Kim have become increasingly close in recent years, with the rapper apologising for the way he treated her in his 2017 song, Bad Husband, and suggesting he hit her during their time together.
The song contains the lines: “We might have loved each other too much / And maybe that’s what made us do what we did to each other / All the screw-ups.”
But while Kim has been getting support from her ex and daughter Hailie, now 25, the death of her mum at the home where Kim nursed her through a long illness tipped her over the edge once again.
In an emotional post she wrote: “We’ve had our riffs but not one second of one day would I not have given my last breath for you. Even now I’d rather it be me than you!!! You’re all I had left Momma!!! What do I do now??”
She added: “I don’t even know how to do this without you.”
Kim’s latest attempt to take her own life will hopefully mean she gets the support she needs to get through.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission