Eminem on overdose that nearly killed him: ‘It took a long time for my brain to start working again’
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Eminem has opened up about his near-fatal overdose and recovery.
The 49-year-old was fighting an addiction to prescription medication when he was hospitalized in December 2007 after taking an overdose of methadone.
In an intimate interview on the Paul Pod podcast, hosted by the Grammy winner’s longtime manager Paul Rosenberg, 51, Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, revealed, ‘It took a long time for my brain to start working again.’
Opening up: Eminem, 49, has opened up about his near-fatal 2007 overdose in 2007 and subsequent road to recovery; seen in Los Angeles in February
After the overdose, The Real Slim Shady artist went back to using again, but he was scared by the near-death experience and entered rehab, and finally got in April 2008.
According to the rapper and his manager, doctors were testing medications to help stabilize his condition.
‘And some of them took you a minute to adjust to—let’s just leave it at that. So, you’re learning how to rap again almost literally, right?’ asked Rosenberg.
‘Because it’s the first time, probably, you were creating without having substances in your body in…however many years, right?
‘Didn’t you ask the doctors when I first started rapping again, didn’t you say, “I just wanna make sure he doesn’t have brain damage”?’ the Rap God artist asked.
Re-learn: The Real Slim Shady rapper confessed after the addiction and detox ‘it took a long time for my brain to start working again’
Manager: The Grammy winner revealed these details in an interview with his manager, Paul Rosenberg, 51, on his Paul Pod podcast; pictured in New York in April
‘Yeah. I thought you might have some permanent problems,’ the manager responded. ‘Yeah. I was concerned, for sure.’
The Angry Blonde author recollected he was taking ’75 to 80 valium a night’ while he detoxed and worked on his album Relapse.
During that time a track called Detroit Basketball was leaked.
Valium: During his recovering, doctors were trying to stabilize the rapper’s condition. Eminem revealed that he was taking ’75 to 80 valium a night’ as he worked on his album Relapse; seen in Los Angeles in 2005
‘Nobody was pushing you, you were just finding your way and doing it slowly, but a record that leaked out, that Detroit Basketball record, it wasn’t good,’ Rosenberg said.
Eminem agreed: ‘It was f***ing weird, because as my brain was turning back on, I started going over lines like, “Wait, that’s not good.”
‘If you remember, I don’t know which version leaked, but if you remember, there were like, 20 versions of that s**t.’
The songwriter admitted in an interview with Vulture in 2017, that the music he created while addicted and in recovery were not his best.
Brain damage: Rosenberg asked doctors at one time if the rapper was suffering from brain damage after the drug overdose, detox and recovery; seen in Chicago in 2014
‘Encore (the album before his overdose) was mediocre, and with Relapse, —it was the best I could do at that point in time,’ he said.
‘I was so scatterbrained that the people around me thought that I might have given myself brain damage. I was in this weird fog for months.
‘Like, literally I wasn’t making sense; it had been so long since I’d done vocals without a ton of Valium and Vicodin. I almost had to relearn how to rap.’
After being sober for more than a decade, the Marshall Mathers Foundation creator has released a greatest hits album, Curtain Call 2. The 35-song collection contains tracks from The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Recovery and Relapse.
Greatest hits: The Emmy, Oscar and Grammy winner has recently released a greatest hits album, Curtain Call 2; seen in 2020
The disc also includes collaborations with Rihanna and Beyoncé.
In a call on the Sirius XM show Sway in the Morning in June, the Is This Love artist revealed that rapping has helped on his mental health journey.
‘I think that’s one of the great things about rap music… is that you could put so much of your life in it,’ Eminem told the audience.
‘It’s therapeutic, and that’s how it’s always been for me.’
Curtain Call 2: The new release has 35 tracks, including collaborations with Beyonce and Rihanna; pictured in Newark in August