"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" (12 page)

Lo and behold, on the second trip Slim wanted to hook up with her
again. He didn’t care about her age because her pussy was so tight. I had to
remind him of all the drama, when her mom had the authorities threaten
to come get Agnes. I told him we all could have gone to jail. Luckily, we
found out what was going on, and we sent her back on the first thing that
was running on gas.We called her mom and apologized because we didn’t
know she was only fifteen, and we told her about the fake ID and that she
looked nineteen. But that didn’t matter to Slim because he lived up to the
lyrics of his song when basically he said, “she’s fifteen, he doesn’t care.
Look at her bush, does she have hair? Fuck her right there on the spot,
there. ” He lived up to his song lyrics. Whether he realized he did this or
not, he did it.

We were back in Stockholm, Sweden, the land of pretty woman
and underage groupies. Upon arriving at the hotel, we were welcomed
by Slim Shady’s fifteen-year-old mistress, Agnes. Apparently, her jealous
friends informed her mother that she had sex with Slim Shady and was
leaving the country on his tour. Her mother called our hotel forbidding
Agnes to leave. Then she contacted the police and told them about Slim’s
involvement with an underage girl. However, Agnes disobeyed her mom
and attempted travel anyway. The Interscope international representative
advised Slim that he could be brought up on charges for dealing with this
minor. In some countries, a fifteen-year-old is legal—but with parental
approval. Agnes’ mom didn’t approve at all. Slim still invited Agnes to
travel with the tour. He went as far as having Agnes ride with us to the
airport. We were notified by phone from the authorities that the mother
wouldn’t press charges if Agnes didn’t attempt to leave. But if she tried to
board the plane, we would all be arrested for accomplice to statutory rape!
Slim’s entire staff practically begged him to be wise and avoid Agnes.
Slim temporarily agreed and sent her home in a taxi. However, when we
returned to Stockholm, Slim continued to mess around with this girl. I
had this gut feeling there were going to be some problems that night.
Slim never would listen; he truly doesn’t GIVE A FUCK! As soon as Slim
saw Agnes, he forgot about Kessia. They were like two dogs in heat when
their eyes met again. Agnes thrust her tongue in Slim’s mouth, and then
they hurried to a nearby restroom for a quickie. Proof was joking with

some young ladies while Slim and Agnes were in the bathroom possibly
getting busy.Again, I warned Slim about Agnes’ age and the consequences
that could follow. Mark Labelle saw Proof laughing with the young ladies
and thought that would be a good time to be introduced and try to impress
the ladies. Proof left the ladies and then went back to the dressing room.

Later on after the show, one of the young ladies approached Proof
with some information. Apparently, Mark had made negative remarks I
heard secondhand what Mark said about Proof from the young lady,but how
true was it? I didn’t know. This was the second day of the tour. Everybody
was stressed out because Slim was messing around with this young girl
again. Although we were in a foreign country, she was still too young for
him to be dealing with, but he chose to do so.We had a long road ahead of
us because the tour was scheduled for three weeks. Nobody really wanted
to be there, but hey, we were making some money.That was about the best
thing going. By the time Proof got this information, everybody was drunk
and high from Ecstacy, weed, Martell, and Hennessy. The emotions were
running high, and everyone was feeling good. Proof was telling Slim that
he needed to talk to him, and Mark caught wind of what was going on. Mark
was trying to get Slim’s attention away from Proof. Proof then pulled Slim
into a private room to talk to him about Mark’s alleged racial statements.
He also told him about Mark putting him down in front of a groupie.

Mark was cock-blocking and hating. Proof had reached a point
where he was feeling underappreciated for all the sacrifices he had made.
Proof and I had a lot in common, like leaving a child and girlfriend to
help Slim’s career. Proof felt disrespected as an artist and as a hype man.
Proof basically built Slim’s whole show. Proof had reached his threshold,
and Mark’s comments really set him off. I believe that if Proof hadn’t
controlled himself, he would have given Mark some PA treatment (Puritan
Ave. ). Proof hadn’t come all this way for that—he tried successfully to
keep his focus and his mind-set together.

I don’t think Mark realized that he had stepped on Proof’s toes, but
he did. One thing I learned on this tour is that New York cats and Detroit
cats are two totally different types of people. They handle things in two
different ways. What you do to cats in New York, you can’t do to cats in
Detroit. We aren’t going for it. We will let you know when shit is offensive
to us. That’s basically what went down. Proof told Slim what was said.
They were all drunk and high to the extreme. I went to the restroom. Paul
and Mark were in the hallway trying to figure out what Proof and Slim
were discussing. I overheard Mark trying to get Slim’s attention, but he
wanted to get Proof out of the room. Proof told Mark to wait because he
was talking to Slim. Mark said, “This is more important than what you’re
talking about man. I need Slim out here right now!” I guess with Mark
being Slim’s road manager, he was trying to use that as an edge to get
Slim away from Proof, and he was just trying to keep Slim from finding
out what was said earlier.

Proof preferred to tell Slim and let Slim handle the situation rather
than take it into his own hands. Clearly, Mark was getting increasingly
agitated and impatient. Finally, Slim told Mark that he would have to
wait while he talked to Proof. Mark yelled, “Man, get dat mutha fucka
outta your ear!” over and over. Proof told Slim what exactly was said. Now,
Slim’s drunk, Mark’s drunk, and Proof seemed sober to me. I’m still in the
bathroom taking a leak. The next thing I heard was a loud-ass “thump!” I
mean a loud-ass Batman slap, like POW!! I didn’t know what happened.
I thought some groupie guys had come backstage and started some mess.
I damn near zipped my business up in the zipper and ran out into the
hallway to see what happened. All I saw was Paul holding Mark and Proof
holding Slim. Slim had punched Mark Labelle right in his eye—BAM!!!
Slim knocked the hell out of Mark.

Mark and Slim were trying to get at each other. I picked Slim up,
who started trying to get physical with me. I carried him into the dressing
room and slammed him on the couch. I told him to calm the fuck down.
Mark remained in the hallway. Slim told me that Mark’s racist remark really
struck a nerve with him. No one was thinking clearly due to the liquor and
drug use. He reasoned that punching Mark stemmed from being tired of
all the racism that he had been faced with all his life. Actually, Slim was
just using that as an excuse because he had wanted to hit Mark for a long
time. He hadn’t cared too much for Mark since he came into the picture.
One time, Slim wanted to fight Mark because he had taken one of his
Vicodin pills. Mark was almost fired that day for ingesting Slim’s drugs.
Slim often felt that Mark was treating him like a little kid. However, Slim’s
behavior often inspired that form of treatment. Mark is the type of guy
who will take care of you as long as you show him some respect, and he
likes to be praised publicly.

I felt sorry for Mark at that point because he always went out of
his way to take care of Slim. For example, when we would go to a foreign
country or out of state, Mark would literally go out to the street to find
Ecstacy and Vicodin. That was part of his job. Mark convinced Paul to
implement a budget strictly for Slim’s drugs and liquor. Mark didn’t know
anybody in these foreign streets, but he copped Slim’s drugs. He would
make sure that Slim had the right Nikes to go with the right jeans. He
would make sure Slim had new coats and gym shoes. He took care of Slim
first and then took care of the rest of the crew. He made sure we all looked
good. I really felt bad for Mark because I knew he wanted to whip Slim’s
ass. I told Mark, “Look, just because I am working for Slim and keeping
myself between y’all doesn’t mean I take his side. ” Honestly, Slim fucked
up by putting his hands on Mark. He really fucked up. I told Mark that he

should sue or ask for a hefty raise. Meanwhile, Slim was in the dressing
room getting hyped. He was standing on the table giving his famous righthook speech, about how he knocks people out with his right hook. This
speech only comes when he’s drunk and high or he’s either had a fight or
he’s ready to fight. Everybody was laughing at him. I chose to stand in the
hallway, separate from Slim, because I didn’t want to appear to be taking
sides. I didn’t see the fight; I just heard the altercation and intervened.
Mark was trying his best to get back to Slim, and if he had succeeded, it
would have been ugly.

Thinking back, the second trip to Stockholm, Sweden, was when
Slim’s personality started to unravel. Slim Shady crossed over into the
persona of Marshall Mathers. He started to believe all the shit he rapped
about; he started to believe his own hype. He started to believe that he
could do or say anything to anybody. He was biting the hand that fed
him. Mark took care of him even while at home. Mark would get him
free clothes and have them sent to his house and my house. I think that
was the shittiest thing Slim could have done. Things like that you just
don’t make up for no matter how many times you apologize. Mark let Slim
know that shit every chance he got. Now that everyone was separated, Paul
was sitting in the hallway worried that Slim was going to come at him
to tell him to fire Mark. Mark was Paul’s boy. Paul was confronted with
a decision he didn’t want to make. He realized he wasn’t the big boss he
pretended to be, rather he was no different from me—we both worked for
Slim Shady. Paul tried to glorify his position many times, but in reality he
worked for Slim just like the rest of us did. He always acted arrogant, like
he was better than the rest of us. This was the first time I had seen him
confused. He always thought he knew the right answers, but this time he
didn’t know what to do. He was in a dilemma. I just sat back and watched
the whole thing unravel. I thought to myself, Slim is really losing it! He is
losing it! It was only going to get worse. This was the first sign of Marshall
Mathers losing his identity to Slim Shady.

After the
fight, we sent Mark back to the hotel in a separate vehicle
from Slim, and in the midst of everything, all of these young groupies
were gathered out in front of the hotel. Kessia was with us, and we went
in so Slim could sign some autographs. Kessia sat down, and who sat
right by her? Agnes, the fifteen-year-old super-groupie! Agnes saw Kessia
with Slim but tried to be friendly by providing Kessia with too much
information. I don’t know what the conversation was about. What I do
know is that Kessia’s mood totally changed from the time we were at
the venue to the time we were in the hotel room. By this time, Slim had
reached his peak of being drunk and high. He was being arrogant and
loud and was really ego-tripping at this point. He wasn’t caring about
anyone’s feelings or emotions. I told him, “You are playing it kind of close.
You know, Agnes sat down right next to Kessia. They were talking and,
to be honest, Kessia didn’t look too happy. ” He was like, “Well, where is
Kessia at?” I said, “She went back downstairs. She’s not in the room right
now. ” He was like, “Well, fuck it! Fuck it”

Really, Kessia was in the room next to ours, and both windows were
open. Kessia was hanging out the window looking at the view. She looked
depressed from the stress of the tour, and it was only the second day.
Kessia was sitting there listening while Slim was bragging about what he
did to Agnes in the bathroom, how he sexed her up, how he fingered her,
and how she gave him some head.We reminded him that he was cutting it
close with Kessia. His response was, “Man, I don’t give a fuck about none
of these bitches! Fuck these hos! I don’t give a fuck about Kessia! I don’t
give a fuck about her! Shit! I do what the fuck I want to do!” I was like,
“Damn! What’s that all about?” Slim said he was tired of muthafuckas
telling him what to do. “Man, ain’t anybody trying to tell you nothing.
I’m just saying, man, you are playing it a little bit close. I can only cover
you for so many lies, man. Other than that, you’re on your own!” After
my brief conversation with Slim on trying to be a playboy, I went to the
window to get some air, and who do I see? It’s Kessia, crying. She looked
at me with a smile to let me know that she was OK, but she had tears in
her eyes. Immediately, I knew she heard everything that had been said.
She was hurt, and I thought that was real fucked up. She was beyond
being a groupie. She had proven herself to be a sweet girl. I didn’t think
anyone deserved to be treated like that. Slim had shitted on this young
lady. She had overheard him, and there was no way he could deny it. We
didn’t say anything to each other; we each just closed our windows. I told
Slim, “Guess what? While you were in here saying all those things, Kessia
was right in the next room. ”He said, “How do you know?” And I said,
“Because I saw her sitting right there in the window, and she had tears
in her eyes, man. She heard everything you were saying. ” He was like,
“For real?” and his whole mood changed, and he was like, “Well, I’ll get
with y’all later, ” and he went into his room to try to make things right.
She never said anything to him about it. I know one thing; she gave him
NO ASS that night! He only hit that one time throughout the whole tour
because of that situation. He was mad. I said, “Man, you going to fly a
mistress out, spend $7, 000 on her, and treat her like that?” You should
have at least been trying to get $7, 000 worth of ass.This is your fault, man.
You treated her like a third-class citizen. You spent all that money to get
her out here, and your total focus should have been on her.You are sitting
up here paying for steak, chewing on chicken nuggets, man. You got to be
smarter. ”He always did dumb shit; that’s what he chose to do.

It was October 27th, and we were
flying from Stockholm to Berlin,
and everybody was tripping that it was only the third day of the tour and
all of this drama jumped off already, and the tour wasn’t scheduled to
end until the 17th of November. It seemed like we had been on tour a
few weeks already, and everybody was like, “Man, we got a long way to go.
” I was thinking about my wife and kids, and I was looking at Slim in a
different light and didn’t like what I was seeing. Since I was working for
him, I really wasn’t at liberty to express my opinions; I was just making my
money. We made it to Berlin and did a hype show, but what I remember
most is how Slim and Paul treated this one VIP—they treated this guy like
scum. Slim wanted to go to Niketown before his show. It was Paul, Slim,
Patrice, this black guy in Berlin who is the host of the MTV video show over
there, and me. Patrice and I got close on our first trip to Berlin, and he was
a cool guy—he pretty much went out of his way to accommodate people.
He did a lot to make us feel happy and comfortable in Germany. But every
time he would ask a question just to be conversational, Slim and Paul
would cut him down, saying things like, “Man, why the fuck would you ask
a stupid question like that!” I was wondering why they were talking to him
like that because he didn’t deserve that. I mean, they were really getting
beside themselves. They felt like they could talk to anybody any kind of
way, but they failed to realize that someone was going to do them the same
way one day because they were bullies. Paul tried to bully the whole crew
like he was above the rest of us, but I always told him, “I work for Slim, I
don’t work for you. ” But Paul had this way of getting into Slim’s head and
controlling his brain like a puppet. He would tell Slim what to say, what to
do, and how to react. It’s a shame to see a grown man be influenced like
that. Slim basically followed Paul’s lead in talking down to Patrice the way
they did. Later on, Patrice told me I was the nicest guy out of the bunch
and related to me how he felt about Slim and Paul treating him like shit.
I was like, “Man, I noticed that, but you need to speak up to them and
not let them do that to you. ” He was like, “Man, I only have to deal with
them once or twice a year, so I’m not even going to sweat it because I have
business to conduct. ” I said, “Well, anything you need Slim to do don’t
ask Paul, ask me, and I can help you get it done.These guys go out of their
way to be assholes, and it’s not fair to you or a lot of other people that they
do it to. The best thing for you to do is not take it personally. ” He agreed
and told me again how nice a person I was.

That night, we experienced our
first trip on a European tour bus. It
was nothing to brag about. Picture this: a 6’8” black man, 320 pounds, in
Europe. I’m like a giant over there because most of the people over there
are skinny. If you see somebody fat over there the first thing you want to
ask them is, “How did that happen?” When they say European cut, they
mean that. That is no joke. European cut means “too small for your big
ass. ” I found that out quickly. The tour bus was my second lesson in this
situation. The tour bus I’m used to is about the size of a diesel truck with
a trailer attached to it. The European tour bus was about half the size of
that bus. It was sharp, but it was narrow and tight. Imagine ten people in
half a tour bus. The beds were set up like coffins. I had to test each bed
to see which one I could fit in. In one of them, the ceiling was so low I
couldn’t even get in—period. I finally found a bed I could fit in, but I had
to maneuver my legs in first, hang out the bed, then push the rest of my
body in, in order to fit! It was such a tight fit that I couldn’t sleep on my
side because my shoulder would touch the top of the next bunk, and I
couldn’t sleep straight because my legs were too long. Ultimately, I had to
be creative—I had to sleep with one leg hanging out of the bunk and the
other leg folded up and, needless to say, that wasn’t very comfortable at all.
I wasn’t looking forward to going through three weeks of that shit.

On top of that, the food was terrible. They didn’t believe in regular
food—all they served us was pork and rabbit food (vegetables) and you
really couldn’t get full. I must have lost about fifteen pounds on that tour.
If you did eat any of the food over there, it tore up your stomach. We
all must have had the runs for about a week. Another problem was that
the bathroom on the bus was like five feet high and three feet wide, so
that totally eliminated me from using the bathroom. When I went to the
bathroom, I had to stand on the stairs that led to the bathroom, pee in a
cup, and then pour the pee into the toilet. And forget about taking a dump
because it wasn’t even happening. My ass is three feet wide. I couldn’t
even get in the door—period, so it was torture. Between the food and the
restroom facilities in Europe, by this time I was really missing home. And
we had one cell phone on the bus, which was used to communicate with
the US, like Interscope and home.

At night, we would take turns using the phone. I would always
wait until nighttime when everyone else was asleep to call home, since
Europe was six hours ahead anyway. I would rather wait than stand in line
behind everyone else to call the US. The only bad part about that was if
my wife or someone were to call, I would never get the message because
so many people used the phone that we wouldn’t get our messages for a
couple of days, so I always made it a point to call home at least twice a
day. Other than that, we still had the other problems, like the Mark and
Slim situation. Mark was still pissed, and I couldn’t blame him. He was
going to quit, but Paul convinced him to stay on, and Slim was kissing
his ass and was real apologetic whenever he was sober, which was usually
a short-lived moment in the morning. That was basically the pattern on
the tour. For about a week, the Mark and Slim situation was the hot topic.
Kessia wasn’t opening up to Slim, figuratively and literally, and she spoke
to me about overhearing the things Slim said about her, so of course she
was hurt. She was ready to go home, but all she did was smoke some weed
to pacify her feelings and try to make Slim miserable in the process, and
that’s what he deserved.

On October 29th, we were in Chemnitz, Germany, the ghetto of all
ghettos.This ghetto was worse than any ghetto you can imagine in the US.
On top of that, this was an area in Germany where there used to be Nazi
concentration camps. That made Mark Labelle nervous because he was a
Jew. I wasn’t really nervous because I had dealt with the Nazis before, as
well as the Klan, so I had nothing to worry about. But Mark was as nervous
as a dog in a Chinese restaurant. We all stuck together, and no one went
out of his or her way to do anything extra because it was really dark there.
I mean dark all the time. It was depressing! You could actually sense the
racial problems they had in the past. It was sick, seeing all the racial slurs
written on the walls, seeing the bunkers and the locked-up sheds with
racial graffiti on them. It was sick. It looked exactly like the concentration
camps we had seen in our history books. We couldn’t wait to get the fuck
out of there. It was eerie. We did a hype show, but I told Slim I had a bad
feeling about the place and warned him not to do any stage dives that
night. I told him, “As the Nazis tell it, they can’t stand any of us, so don’t
jump off the stage tonight because you could get stabbed or something. ”
They weren’t known for shootings, but they were known for stabbings in
that particular part of Germany. Fortunately, he listened to me, and we did
the show and we got the hell out of there.

A few days had gone by, and we did a few more shows, and everyone
was trying to get accustomed to this small tour bus with its limited amount
of sitting and standing space. It was horrible. Slim was getting tired of
Kessia being on the tour, and he was going to cut her little vacation short.
All she wanted to do was see Amsterdam, but she was supposed to be
on for the length of the entire tour. Kessia and Slim were getting tired
of each other, and she wasn’t giving him any sex. He was hurting, so he
started making preparations to fly in another young lady, Nicole, from
California, whom he had met during the Hawaii Death Row incident. He
started making up this story to tell Kessia, that he was flying his “girl” out.
He always referred to Kim as his girl and not his wife. Kessia knew about
Kim, but Kim didn’t know about Kessia. He proceeded to tell Kessia this
story that he and Kim were having some problems, and that he needed to
see her in order to work them out. This was just to get Kessia out of there,
since she wasn’t giving him any sex. I really couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t
treating her right, so she cut off the goods. She was like, “Well, I guess
I’m not going to make it to Amsterdam, huh?” Slim said, “No. I’m going to
send you home on November 2nd. ” She was upset about that. I told her
to just look at this like it was a little vacation. “Now you can go home and
tend to whatever personal business you may have. ” At least, now you see
how he operates. This is his lifestyle. He is going to run through a lot of
people like toilet paper. He’s going wipe himself then throws them away.