Eminem‘s manager, Paul Rosenberg, was concerned the rapper might have had brain damage following his hospital stay in 2007 after overdosing on methadone.
Slim Shady appeared on the latest episode of Rosenberg’s Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2 podcast that was released on Wednesday (September 7). During the conversation, they discussed Eminem’s drug overdose and his journey to recovery.
“It took a long time for my brain to start working again,” Em admitted, to which Rosenberg replied: “I mean, you literally were coming off of an overdose and they had to sort of stabilize you with a few medications. And some of them took you a minute to adjust to – let’s just leave it at that.
“So you’re learning to rap again, almost literally, right? Because it’s the first time probably you were creating without having substances in your body in however many years, right?”
Eminem verified Rosenberg’s comments, before bringing up his manager’s worries after he sent him music for the first time since his overdose.
“Didn’t you ask the doctors — when I first started rapping again and sent it to you — didn’t you say like, ‘I just wanna make sure he doesn’t have brain damage,’” he said.
Rosenberg replied: “I thought you might have some permanent problems. Yeah, I was concerned, for sure.”
Eminem opened up about his drug rehabilitation journey in an interview with MTV in 2010, revealing he had to relearn how to rap and drive a car.
“I had to learn to write and rap again, and I had to do it sober and 100 percent clean,” he said. “That didn’t feel good at first … I mean it in the literal sense. I actually had to learn how to say my lyrics again; how to phrase them, make them flow, how to use force so they sounded like I meant them.
“Rapping wasn’t like riding a bike. It was [as much] physical as mental. I was relearning basic motor skills. I couldn’t control my hand shakes. I’d get in the [recording] booth and tried to rap, and none of it was clever, none was witty and I wasn’t saying it right.”
Following his overdose, the Detroit native returned with Relapse in 2009, his first solo album since 2004’s Encore. The project was heavily inspired by his prescription pill addiction as he rapped about his battle on songs like “Déjà Vu” and “My Mom.”
In 2019, Eminem celebrated over a decade of sobriety. “11 years,” he wrote on Twitter while sharing a photo of his 11-year coin from a 12-step drug rehab program. “still not afraid.”
