Eminem Opens Up About Drug Overdose That Nearly Killed Him: “It Took A Long Time To Get My Brain To Work Again”

In an interview with Paul Rosenberg, rapper Eminem confessed that he has been sober for more than a decade, but also that during his addiction to prescription drugs he was hospitalized and was close to death.

Eminem opened up for the first time about his near-fatal overdose and difficult recovery. The 49-year-old rapper was battling his addiction to prescription drugs when he was hospitalized in December 2007 after overdosing on methadone.

Now, after more than a decade of the difficult moment, the singer offered an intimate interview to the “Paul Pod” podcast , conducted by Paul Rosenberg -former manager of the Grammy winner-, in which he said: “It took me a long time for my brain would work again.

After the overdose, the artist – whose real name is Marshall Mathers – returned to use, but scared by the near-death experience, he entered rehab and finally finished his treatment in April 2008. According to the rapper and his representative, doctors They tried medications to help stabilize his condition.

Eminem recalled taking “75 to 80 Valiums a night” while detoxifying and working on his Relapse album . During that time, a song called “Detroit basketball” was leaked . “It was really weird, because as my brain was turning back on, I started going through lines like, ‘Wait, that’s not good.’ If you remember, I don’t know which version was leaked, but if you remember, there were like 20 versions of that song.”

The songwriter admitted in an interview with Vulture in 2017 that the music he created while addicted and in recovery wasn’t the best. “ Encore (the album before he overdosed) was mediocre, and Relapse was the best I could do at the time,” he said. “I was so dazed that people around me thought I might have been brain damaged. I was in a strange fog for months. It literally made no sense; It’s been so long since I sang without a lot of Valium and Vicodin. I had to relearn how to rap,” he added.

After being sober for more than a decade, the creator of the Marshall Mathers Foundation has released a greatest hits album, Curtain Call 2 . The 35-track collection contains songs from The Marshall Mathers LP 2 , Recovery , and Relapse , as well as collaborations with Rihanna and Beyoncé .