The eighth song on the track list and first single “The Real Slim Shady” from Eminem’s third studio album The Marshall Mathers LP, which was released in 2000, stole the show. The song helped the native of Detroit establish himself as a superstar, with his greatest chart position at the time being No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. But several of his celebrity friends also suffered as a result of this. The video for “The Real Slim Shady” has Eminem portraying himself as the archetype for a long list of famous male musicians who were idolized by the media, continuing the theme of the song, in which he calls out imitators trying to cash in on his fame. Additionally, the public’s perception of him slightly soured as a result of his other superstar namedrops and subsequent representations. Along with other celebrities, Fred Durst and Kathy Griffin made appearances in the corresponding video. Griffin, who played the nurse at the mental health facility Em was locked up in, claimed that Snoop Dogg, who became acquainted with her when they met at the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, was responsible for her inclusion. In the 2017 Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party special on VH1, she said, “Months later, I got invited to perform a part in the Eminem “Real Slim Shady” video, which was directed by Dr. Dre.
“I asked him, ‘What made you guys think of me?'” In the video, I portrayed the nurse. Snoop told you were incredibly humorous, Dr. Dre stated. Snoop thus secured me a role in an Eminem video. That’s what, then? That is a pal. Em makes numerous references to well-known performers throughout the lyrics of “The Real Slim Shady,” utilizing them as a means of groaning about the inanities of Hollywood, including Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, Will Smith, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and more. He also shows a lot of these celebrities as having no regrets, which obviously raised some feathers. He and a bunch of actors ridicule *NSYNC at one point, a well-known boy band at the time that Em was obviously sick of being associated with.
I’m sick of you little girl and boy groups, all you do is annoy me
So I have been sent here to destroy you
And there’s a million of us just like me
Who cuss like me, who just don’t give a fuck like me
Who dress like me, walk, talk and act like me
And just might be the next best thing, but not quite me
Em went on to say that he would do whatever it took to avoid being compared to boy bands like *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys in a later interview. When my debut record was released, all of this boy band garbage, you know, was not really… The rapper acknowledged it was happening, but it wasn’t as absurd as it is now, according to a remark obtained by MTV. “And the garbage is cheesy, in my opinion. According to articles I’ve read, Eminem resembles the Backstreet Boys. And I frequently find myself falling into that category. Therefore, the greatest approach I’ve found to distance oneself from that group is to simply do so. Lash out, or something. In response, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC called Em a controversy magnet and compared him to the late Crocodile Hunter of Animal Planet on MTV’s Total Request Live at the time. Kirkpatrick would later receive another jab from Em in his 2002 song “Without Me.”
A tisket, a tasket, I’ll go tit-for-tat wit’
Anybody who’s talkin’, “This shit, that shit”
Chris Kirkpatrick, you can get your ass kicked
In the end, however, “The Real Slim Shady” did more than just help Eminem stand out from the crowd as a musician and cultural icon; it also established the precedent that he had a tendency toward provocateur, an accusation he gleefully accepted.
