Just 18 days after the release of his album “The Death of Slim Shady” Eminem teamed up with Complex to release a full interview of Slim Shady conducted by Marshall Mathers himself. The interview was done with AI being used to create a beardless Shady with his signature bleached blonde hair.
In this 10-minute YouTube video, Marshall interacts with a younger, more immature version of himself. They dropped big names like Caitlyn Jenner, Christopher Reeve, and Machine Gun Kelly. Then they continue to argue over who is responsible for their success, their years of sobriety, past controversies, and how the world has changed since Slim Shady was popular in the early 2000s.
Eminem had been teasing this interview on social media for quite a while, making it feel like this would be more significant like a deluxe album announcement or even re-introducing Slim Shady back into music full-time.
Unfortunately for Shady fans, this appeared to be more of a skit than anything else. It feels like Marshall Mathers truly wants to put an end to this persona and all of the negative attention that is associated with it. He is becoming much more self-aware, going as far as to say, “I’ve grown, my fanbase has grown up”.
This is even more evident when the Slim Shady persona pops pills and drinks alcohol mid-conversation to which Mathers says, “Bro I’m sixteen years sober.” Closing the book on any of his past issues.
It did have some comedic moments as well. The bickering and childish behavior from Slim Shady is quite funny but blown out of proportion to convey how much he has changed. “Congratulations, u wrote the national anthem for stalkers and domestic abusers”, says Slim when referencing the song ‘Stan’.
In the end, they agreed that neither of them was truly right, “We both made Eminem, he’s the best of both of us and really it’s not about me or you, it’s about him and the fans”. Both Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady have positives and negatives, but the Eminem name encompasses all of that.
