A former school classmate of Eminem has filed a $1 million lawsuit in Macomb County, Mich., Circuit Court against the rapper, alleging his reputation has been damaged by lyrics from Eminem’s song “Brain Damage,” according to the Detroit Free Press.
DeAngelo Bailey of Roseville, Mich., is called out in the song “Brain Damage” from The Slim Shady LP, in which Eminem portrays his former classmate as a relentless bully who constantly battered the rapper.
“I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey,” raps Eminem in the song. “An eighth-grader who acted obnoxious, cause his father boxes/ So every day he’d shove me into the lockers/And he had me in the position to beat me into submission/He banged my head against the urinal until he broke my nose/Soaked my clothes in blood, grabbed me, and choked my throat.”
The suit reads, in part, “In his music lyrics, Eminem falsely portrayed himself as the victim of a pattern of outrageous and grotesque physical abuse from his childhood friend Bailey. Eminem publicized lyrics that were intended to damage Bailey in order to improve Eminem’s reputation as a rap artist.”
In a lawsuit that was eventually dropped, Eminem’s mother sued the Roseville school district in 1982, alleging the young Marshall Mathers suffered from headaches, nausea, and a tendency toward anti-social behavior as a result of school beatings.
Coincidentally, Bailey is now a sanitation worker and is trying to launch a career as a rapper.
Requests for comment from Interscope Records were not returned by press time.