Debbie Nelson, the single mother of rapper Eminem whose rocky relationship with her son was known widely through his hit song lyrics, has died. She was 69.
Eminem’s longtime representative Dennis Dennehy confirmed Nelson’s death in an email on Tuesday. He did not provide a cause of death, although Nelson had battled lung cancer.
Nelson was born in 1955 on a military base in Kansas. Her fraught relationship with her son, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, has been no secret since the Detroit rapper became a star.
Eminem has disparaged his mother in songs such as the 2002 single “Cleaning Out My Closet.” Eminem sings: “Witnessin’ your mama poppin’ prescription pills in the kitchen. ... My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t.”
In lyrics from his Oscar-winning hit “Lose Yourself” from the movie “8 Mile,” his feelings seem to have simmered, referencing his "mom’s spaghetti.” The song went on to win best rap song at the 2004 Grammy Awards.
Nelson brought and settled a pair of defamation lawsuits over Eminem’s statements about her in magazines and on radio talk shows. In her 2008 book, “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,” she attempted to set the record straight by providing readers details about the rapper’s early life, writing that Eminem had forgotten the good times they had.
“Marshall and I were so close that friends and relatives commented that it was as if the umbilical cord had never been cut,” she wrote.
She also detailed her own childhood, describing a violent home life in which her dad’s mother, who she spent summers with, was “the one woman in my large dysfunctional family to show us kids love.”
In 2004, she was dragged from her car on Eight Mile Road, the street in a Detroit suburb made famous by “8 Mile,” by a 16-year-old who was later sentenced to more than four years in prison. She suffered bruises and a broken foot.
The highly acclaimed rapper Eminem won for best hip hop act at the 2024 MTV EMAs and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
He announced in October that he was going to be a grandfather, saying his daughter Hailie Jade is pregnant by way of a touching music video that is a tribute to their relationship.
The story has been updated to correct that Eminem announced in October that he was going to be a grandfather, not last month.
FILE - Debbie Nelson, mother of rap star Eminem, appears in Mount Clemens, Mich., on April 10, 2001. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria said Wednesday its counteroffensive has pushed back insurgents attempting to advance to the strategic central city of Hama, while the insurgency says it captured more Syrian troops and Iran-backed militants in fierce battles.
The latest flareup in Syria's long civil war comes after forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad over the past days captured large parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, as well as towns and villages in southern parts of the northwestern Idlib province.
The offensive is being led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadi group, as well as an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. For years, both have entrenched themselves in northwest Idlib province and parts of northern Aleppo, as the battered country reeled from years of political and military stalemates.
The war between Assad and his foreign backers and the array of armed opposition forces seeking his overthrow has killed an estimated half-million people over the past 13 years.
Syrian state media SANA on Wednesday said insurgents retreated some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from government-held Hama, Syria's fourth largest city, as government troops backed by Russian airpower entrenched themselves in the outskirts. Fierce fighting has raged for days as Damascus fears that the insurgents will make their way into the city like they did over the weekend into Aleppo.
A Syrian photographer working for the German news agency dpa was killed in an airstrike near the city of Hama, the agency said Wednesday. Anas Alkharboutli, 32, has long documented Syria’s civil war, which started after a brutal crackdown on a popular uprising against Assad in 2011. He has worked for dpa since 2017.
The insurgency through its Military Operations Department channel on the Telegram app said they captured five Iran-backed militants, of whom two were from Afghanistan, as well as three Syrian troops from its 25th Special Mission Forces Division in eastern Hama. The claims could not be independently confirmed.
If the insurgents seize Hama city and control the province, it could leave the coastal cities of Tartous and Lattakia isolated from the rest of the country. Lattakia is a key political stronghold for Assad and Syria's Alawite community and a strategic Russian naval base.
Tens of thousands have been displaced by the fighting, which started last week, Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said Tuesday.
“If we do not see deescalation and a rapid move to a serious political process, involving the Syrian parties and the key international players, then I fear we will see a deepening of the crisis," Pedersen said in an address the U.N. Security Council. "Syria will be in grave danger of further division, deterioration, and destruction."
Turkey, which backs Syria's opposition, has called on Assad to reconcile with opposition forces and include them in any political solution to end the conflict.
Ankara has been seeking to normalize ties with Syria to address security threats from groups affiliated with Kurdish militants along its southern border and to help ensure the safe return of more than 3 million Syrian refugees. Assad has insisted that Turkey’s withdrawal of its military forces from northern Syria be a condition for any normalization between the two countries.
Damascus views the insurgents as terrorists, and Assad has vowed to respond to the insurgency with an iron fist.
Turkish and Iranian officials have met earlier this week, in a bid to reach a solution to deescalate the flareup. Arab countries bordering Syria and once backed groups that tried to overthrow Assad, have expressed their concern of the conflict's regional impacts, and have backed the president.
Syrian opposition fighters drive a motorcycle and an armoured vehicle seized from the Syrian army in the town of Maarat al-Numan, south of Idlib, Syria, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Smoke from an airstrike by government forces billows in the sky over the town of Khan Sheikhoun, south of Idlib, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Syrian opposition fighters manoeuvre using armoured vehicles seized from the Syrian army in the town of Maarat al-Numan, south of Idlib, Syria, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)
An abandoned Syrian army armoured vehicle sits on a road controlled by Syrian insurgents in the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian insurgents ride on motorcycles through abandoned Syrian army vehicles on a road in the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
