Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Eminem Got Beat Up - The Eminem / Deangelo Bailey story

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

The DeAngelo Bailey case centers on a 2001 lawsuit filed against rapper Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III) by his former schoolmate, DeAngelo Bailey. Bailey alleged that Eminem's 1999 song "Brain Damage," from The Slim Shady LP, portrayed him falsely and invaded his privacy by depicting him as a violent bully. In the song, Eminem recounts being severely beaten by Bailey in a school bathroom, an account Bailey claimed was exaggerated and defamatory.#truestory #truecrime #eminem

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My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming, only on Disney Plus. Do you remember that time Eminem got beat up, and then, sued for a million dollars? Well, it all starts with this kid, Marshall, and Marshall's nine years old, living in Michigan, and bro has a problem. The poor kid gets bullied a lot in school. I mean, he's only in the fourth grade, but he's getting kicked around like every day. Specifically, there's one kid who messes with him a lot. This kid, DiAngelo, and DeAngelo is a little older, he's 11,

He's in the sixth grade, but he is much bigger than Marshall. And Marshall, admittedly, has a big mouth. So DiAngelo and his boys, they whoop up on him all the time. And this goes on for months. But one day, in 1982, they give it to him real bad. Because it's winter, and it's snowy out, and they're all outside. And the bullies, they see Marshall across the yard. And DiAngelo, I guess he puts like a rock or something hard into a snowball,

and he aims it at Marshall and he throws it as hard as he can and pow it hits him and it knocks him to the ground Then the bullies all jump him and they beat him over and over and over again and eventually Marshall stops moving he's blacked out and DiAngelo and his boys they're like oh shit and they don't want to get in trouble So they all run away later Marshall gets sent home because you know he's hurt and there he isn't feeling so well he's losing his vision in one eye and his ear starts bleeding. So his mom, or someone, takes him to the hospital. And at the hospital, they determined that he has a cerebral concussion and for the next five days, he apparently goes in and out of consciousness. Well, lucky for Marshall, he eventually recovers, but he's never the same. According to his mom, as a result of all this bullying,

not only was he physically injured, but he started exhibiting antisocial behavior and acting out. In fact, she's so upset by the damage this is done to him. She goes and files a lawsuit against the school district, claiming that they neglected to protect her son from harm while he was in their care. But unfortunately for her, the lawsuit is eventually thrown out on the grounds that the school district has, like, government immunity or something, and they can't be sued in this case. But whatever, they all eventually move on. So fast forward many years, and it's now the late 80s.

And Marshall's a teenager, and he gets really into hip hop and rapping. And he decides, I want to be a rapper. And over the next decade, he starts freestyling and writing songs and competing in rap battles. And he does this for years. He even puts out an album. And then one night in 1997, his whole life changes. because he's 25 years old now, and he competes in a rap battle competition called the Rap Olympics. I'm moving in for the kill, and I got the trap set.

I can tell you why this is and I ain't even hear you rap yet. And he actually does really well. In fact, he does so well, he gets second place. Here's the thing, though. In the audience that night is an intern for Interscope Records. And this intern really likes what he hears. So after the show, he goes up to Marshall and he's like, You're great. Do you have like a demo or something you can give me? And Marshall, he's still all salty because he came in second place and not first and he's like, yeah, sure, here, whatever. And he gives him an EP, a literal cassette tape of some of his songs called the Slim Shady EP. Not the Slim Shady LP, the Slim Shady EP. It only has a few songs on it. And that intern eventually passes that tape on to his Bosset Interscope. The Bosset Interscope loves it and he passes it on to famous

rapper producer, Dr. Dre. And this leads to Marshall getting signed to Interscope Records as M&M. Then about a year after that, in 1999, his next album, The Slim Shady LP, drops, and it immediately blows the fuck up. And so does he. And very quickly, he becomes one of the biggest, if not the biggest, rapper in the world. Now, one of his songs on the Slim Shady LP is called brain damage. And that song is about the times when he was nine years old and he would get jumped by DeAngelo and his boys. And in the lyrics, he describes some of it and he specifically calls out DeAngelo by name. Now, I can't play it for you because of copyright, but I can wrap it for you. Way before my baby daughter Haley, I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey.

He banged my head against the urinal till he broke my nose, soaked my clothes and blood, and he grabbed me and choked my throat. Made it home later that same. day, started reading a comic, and everything became gray. I couldn't even see what I was trying to read. I went deaf and my left ear started to bleed. Anyway, that's not all of it, but that's some of it. Here's the thing though. Marshall is so popular now that he's doing all kinds of press and interviews and he ends up doing an interview with Rolling Stone. And they ask him about his song Brain Damage and if it's true. And he says, of course, yeah, most of it is. Then the Rolling Stone also finds DeAngelo and they reach out to him to get his side of the story.

And so DiAngelo now he's older. He's married with kids. He's working as like a janitor. And he apparently also wants to start a rap career. And so Rolling Stone asks him about the song Brain Damage and he admits that, yeah, it's true. Yeah, we flipped him right on his head at recess. When we didn't see him moving, we took off running. We lied and said he slipped on the ice.

Hey, do you have his phone number? Those are his exact words. Anyways, two years later, it's now 2001. And for some reason, I guess DeAngelo sees all this success Marshall's been having and he starts getting dollar signs in his eyes. He wants some of that M&M money. And so he goes and he gets a lawyer and he files a lawsuit and he sues him over the song brain damage.

He accuses Marshall of slander and invasion of privacy. for calling him out by name in the song, and in the complaint he specifically cites the song lyrics. And so he claims that the song is not only hurting his reputation, but it's preventing him from starting his own rap career. And because of this, he's suing for $1 million. Here's the thing, though. Not only are the song lyrics protected by free speech,

DeAngelo had already confirmed that what happened in the song was true, two years before when he did the Rolling Stone interview. So of course, the judge, and she ain't buying it. She knows this case is bullshit. So she rules on it. And she literally writes her opinion into the form of a rap. And I'm not making this up. In her order, this is what she wrote.

Mr. Bailey complains that his rep is trash, so he's seeking compensation in the form of cash. Bailey thinks he's entitled to some monetary gain because Eminem used his name in vain. The lyrics are stories, no one would take its fact through an exaggeration of a childish act. It is therefore this court's ultimate position that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition. But that's not even the whole thing, that's just some of it. The whole order is actually pretty long.

So I'm not going to do the whole thing. However, I think it's pretty safe to say, judge got bars. So anyway, the judge dismisses the case, partly on the grounds that DiAngelo admitted in the Rolling Stone interview that he used to bully Marshall, and partly because the case is just fucking stupid. And so Marshall won that battle, and as you already know, he ultimately goes on to have an incredibly successful rap career.