Debbie Mathers was born on January 6, 1955, in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States. She is mostly referred to as Debbie and was just seventeen when she gave birth to her son Eminem.
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Debbie’s Mathers Family And Siblings
Debbie’s parents Bob Nelson (father) and Betty Nixon (mother), separated while she was still very young. Her mom remarried but her stepdad made life hell for Debbie.
Her family is virtually full of bad happenings. She has two brothers and two step-siblings. One of her brothers, Steven murdered his in-law and the other (Todd) suffered a stroke.
Then one of her step-siblings Ronnie Pollinghorn (male) committed suicide because a girl rejected him. While the other, Betty Renee (female) works as Eminem’s housekeeper.
Debbie’s Marriage
Debbie was schooling at Lancaster High School when she met her 21-year-old drummer boyfriend (Marshal Bruce Mathers III). She dropped out of school at age fifteen to tie the knot with him.
Her mother wasn’t really in support of the marriage but Debbie threatened to get pregnant or elope with her lover.
Mom had to give up her ground, sign the Missouri form that permitted for underage unions thereby allowing Debbie to do what she wanted.
The lovers got married on September 20, 1970.
Together they played on the Daddy Warbucks band and with the band, they toured the Ramada Inns and Dakotas.
Eminem’s Birth
On October 17, 1972 (two years after marriage), they welcomed their son Marshall Bruce Mathers III popularly known as Eminem.
But this bundle of joy did not come without complicacies. Debbie Mathers almost lost her life while in labor and collapsed into a coma for three days or thereabout.
Debbie And Son Abandoned
About six months after Eminem’s birth, Debbie’s husband abandoned the mother-son duo and moved to California.
Bruce Mathers rebuffed every effort made by Eminem to contact him. Severally at teen age, Em sent letters to his dad but Debbie reported that they came back with the note, “Return to Sender”.
Left alone to cater for her needs and that of her young son, Debbie Mathers took jobs -though low paying- to support their lives.
But she couldn’t hold a job for long. This may be due to drug addiction as Eminem claims in his track My Name Is. “Ninety-nine percent of my life, I was lied to/ I just found out my mom does more dope than I do (Damn)” .
The duo frequently got kicked out from several trailer pack homes. Relatives weren’t considerate either. They pushed Debbie and her son out to the street once they were fed up.
Motherhood For Debbie Mathers
It stands to be debated whether Debbie was a caring mother. For the most, her son Eminem gives more hints to the opposite.
Virtually everything Eminem says about her is negative.
In Cleaning Out My Closet, Em referred to her as an opportunist and hoped that she’d burn in hell. “But how dare you try to take what you didn’t help me to get?! You selfish bitch, I hope you fuckin’ burn in hell for this shit!”
And in My Name Is, Em said, “99 percent of my life, I was lied to, I just found out my mom does more dope than I do.”
Eminem recalled to NME that his mother frequently kicked him out of the house. “I had to stay with friends for two months at a time. I would bounce from house to house. It was shitty.
I had a lot of friends who I would stay with and their parents were always cooler than my mother.
I would tape my mother throwing me out and play them to my friends’ parents just to show them how crazy she is. I’d stay at Proof’s house and his mother did not care what we did as long as we were safe. My friends’ parents liked me!” “They liked me! I was a likable person, it was just me and my mother did not get along.” “It was not my fault. It was not my fault.”
From this interview with NME, it’s obvious Debbie emotionally neglected her son.
In another line of his song Cleaning Out My Closet, Eminem rapped that she may have Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental condition where one makes another look ill so as to gain attention.
Debbie’s Mathers Suit Against Eminem
In September 1999, Debbie filed a $10 Million defamation suit against her son Eminem.
She claimed that everything Eminem had said in his songs and interviews is not true, and that Em asked his manager to write such lines just to get public attention.
According to NickSwift.com she also complained about losing her mobile home, suffering from humiliation, sleepless nights, and even having a negative view of her credit rating because of the slander.
A settlement was reached in 2001. The court awarded Debbie $25,000 rather than the outrageous $10 Million she filed for.
In another development, a final verdict from the Macomb County Circuit Court Judge, Mark Switalski ruled that Debbie was only entitled to $1,600 out of the $25,000 she received.
Her lawyer- Fred Gibson was awarded the remaining sum, ($23,400). Nonetheless, Fred claimed that Debbie Mathers was the most high-maintenance client he had and that the sum awarded him was not enough.
“This is not the last laugh because she was the most high-maintenance client I’ve had in my legal career.
“That amount was a far cry to the time I dedicated to her personally and to the legal action.” (via Nick Swift).
Debbie Mathers Other Husbands
After her first husband abandoned her, she married Berger Olsen Au Gres.
She married the third time to Don DeMarc, but they also separated. Then she met Fred Samara Jr. for whom she bore Nathan Kane. But to her dismay, Fred also left her and wedded another woman.
Debbie is said to be married to John Briggs according to a post from Showbiz CheatSheet
And in 2013, during the mothers day celebration, Em released a music video for his song headlight. He used it as an apology for the pain he had caused his mom. Eminem acknowledged Debbie Mathers’ effort to be a mom and dad for him at the same time.
Debbie Mathers was born on January 6, 1955, in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States…was just seventeen when she gave birth to her son Eminem.
