Debbie Nelson, best known publicly for her rocky relationship with rap star son Eminem, died Monday night in St. Joseph, Missouri. She was 69.
An Eminem spokesperson confirmed Nelson’s death Tuesday with the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. She had battled cancer for many years and ultimately succumbed to lung cancer. Eminem had not publicly commented on his mother’s passing as of Tuesday afternoon.
Their jagged mother-son relationship was chronicled for years by Eminem in song, including hits such as “Cleanin’ Out My Closet.” The internecine hostility also played out in media interviews given by both, becoming one of the trademark traits of Eminem’s public profile during the early years of his career.
The two became estranged during that first stretch of his success, and Nelson even sued her son for defamation. Born in 1955 on a U.S. Air Force base in Kansas, Nelson would later write of her own turbulent childhood, saying she had “few fond memories” growing up, which included time living in suburban Warren, Michigan, with her grandmother. In 1970, at age 15 — then the legal age for marriage in Missouri — she wed boyfriend Bruce Mathers. Less than two years later, on Oct. 17, 1972, she gave birth to her first son, Marshall, in St. Joseph.
Nelson, who spent much of her adult life known as Debbie Mathers, briefly lived in North Dakota with her infant son before moving back to Missouri. She sought to divorce her husband in 1974, citing physical abuse, but he fled to California, Nelson would later write. Eminem spent his childhood moving between residences in Missouri and metro Detroit’s east side before he and his mom permanently settled in Michigan in the 1980s. Nelson gave birth to his half-brother, Nathan Kane, in 1986.