Eminem has been sober since 2008, but the road to that sobriety was one that he narrowly survived.
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In a recent podcast with his manager Paul Rosenberg, Eminem talked about the harrowing details of his 2007 overdose. Chatting together on the Paul Pod podcast on SiriusXM’s Shade45, the two specifically chatted about how Eminem returned to music in the aftermath of that event.
“It was like the first time I started having fun with music again and relearning how to rap,” Eminem said of writing his 2009 album Relapse. “You remember that whole process, [it] took a long time for my brain to start working again.”
“You literally were coming off of an overdose, and they had to sort of stabilize you with a few medications,” Rosenberg responded. “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? Because it’s the first time, probably, you were creating without having substances in your body, in however many years, right? So it’s a whole different experience.
“I thought you might have some permanent problems,” Rosenberg added. “I was concerned, for sure.”
Eminem and Rosenberg sat down for this conversation in celebration of Eminem’s recent greatest hits album release, Curtain Call 2, which dropped on August 5, 2022.
Similarly, and on the topic of “greatest,” the rapper is one step closer to achieving EGOT status with his recent win at the 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Eminem won the Outstanding Variety Special (Live) Emmy for his participation in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show alongside Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, and Anderson .Paak. Additionally, in 2003, he famously won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself” in the film 8 Mile. And with 15 Grammys to his name, Eminem just needs to nab a Tony Award to join the exclusive EGOT club.
Photo Courtesy of Universal Music
