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

Ecclesiastes 3:7
A time to tear;
a tear to sew;

History constantly repeats itself. Over the last eight years, I have fought
lies against entities stronger than I. I thought working for Slim Shady
would somehow be different, but I was wrong. I had no idea that I would
be accused of STALKING the very man I protected, SLIM SHADY! There
was a change of heart between Slim and I when he brandished his 9 mm
and made threats against me. Unknown to Slim, I had my hand in my coat
pocket holding a . 40 cal. —praying not to take his life in self-defense.
We had been through too much for such a sour ending—or at least I
thought.

How did Byron “Big Nasty” Williams hook up with Slim Shady? One
night I was sitting downstairs in my new home watching an MTV special
about Slim Shady. I had heard about him and figured he was probably just
another Vanilla Ice. I watched his video and was into it, so I went looking
for his CD. Since all of the stores were sold out, I said to myself, “This
kid must really be hot!” Finally, I got the CD, and the next thing I knew
that’s all I was listening to on my way to work at GM every day. I told other
people about it, but they would say, “Aw, that white boy, he’s probably no
different than Vanilla Ice. ” They didn’t want to give him a chance and
discredited him before checking him out. At the time, I was thinking, If
this kid can make it, my groups can make it, too. I wasn’t being hateful or
anything, I just knew that my groups were as talented as he was, and with
Slim being from Detroit maybe it would open up some doors for other
groups. I had seen many failures trying to get a deal, and basically we
were selling our product on the street. I had my own label, Big Willz, and
it seemed like getting a major deal wasn’t going to happen. By the time
I met Slim, I had basically given up on this music thing and had pretty
much settled on being an everyday Joe working at GM. It just seemed
like every time I tried to get away from the music game, something would
happen to pull me back in. I always did security on the side for some
extra money, and on this particular night I got a call from crazy ass “Wolf,
” Adam Rogers, a street politician who knows a lot of people. I knew with
him calling, something was about to happen. He told me that Slim was in
town and needed some security for a rave party and asked if I would be
interested. I told him that I wasn’t really trying to get into anything to do
with music at that time; I was frustrated with it and content with my job.
But Wolf proceeded to talk me into checking it out, anyway. Later, Paul
Rosenberg (Slim’s manager and attorney) called me to ask me to be the
security guy, trying—unsuccessfully—to impress me. He tried to get me
to do three hours for $150, but I told him to give me $250, and I would
cover him with a couple of my boys, and we agreed on that. I thought it
would be a one-night deal. It was easy money. I guess Paul was impressed
with everything we did because the next thing I knew he wanted me to go
on tour with them. His request was on short notice, however, and I wasn’t
impressed. It seemed like the music business was trying to get a hold on
me once again. I contemplated it and talked to my people about it, and
they encouraged me. My man Art Forest, who runs the studio we record
at, told me I would be a fool not to take the job. He said it didn’t matter
that I was security; he saw it as me getting my foot in the door. I had a
long talk with my wife about it, and next thing I knew I was taking a leave
of absence from GM and was packing my bags, not knowing whether my
decision was going to hurt me or help me.

It was Wednesday, April 7, 1999, and the tour began. My
first flight
was the shittiest ever, and I think it was because of a woman; they had a
woman piloting the plane, and she wasn’t very good at it! I didn’t have
anyone to talk to, and I got the feeling that none of the other guys in
Slim’s crew wanted me there. I already was feeling guilty for leaving my
family, particularly with a two-month-old baby, and my wife probably felt
like a single parent. She is a strong woman, though, and has always been
there for me. She remained supportive. As soon as we touched ground,
I called all of my people to feel at home again. I felt proud of myself for
being there. I wondered what to do next. I constantly read my Bible to
remain focused, and I did that throughout the whole tour. Some of the
shit I saw on that tour made me think I was working for the devil.

We did two shows in Chicago. The
first show was mild, but prior to
the second show Slim was drinking like a fish and doing all kinds of
drugs, so at that point I knew I was in for a ride. I don’t even know how
he did the show. Some of his words were slurred, but he pulled through
it. He must have done twenty stage dives that night, and I had to get him
back on the stage, which wasn’t easy while fighting twenty girls trying to
rip his shirt off. I proved myself that first night, but I got no thanks or
anything. I had to go introduce myself to people that night because no
one had said anything to me yet. I didn’t expect it, though, since security
personnel always have the most responsibility and the least respect. After
that, we headed to Pittsburgh.We were all getting acquainted, since it was
the beginning of the tour and we didn’t really know one other. Slim had
Proof and DJ Head, and then there was Gus, the tour manager Billy, the
production manager, G, the bus driver, and me.There was a real ethnic mix
of characters. Gus was the cool white dude. Billy was a straight-up stoner
and openly smoked everything under the sun, but he got his job done as
long as you let him do his thing. Gus had been touring for fifteen years
and was only thirty. Nothing impressed him. Basically, he just wanted to
get the job done because he had seen everything. Proof, who is the best
freestyle emcee in the world, was Slim’s hype man and didn’t drink or
smoke at all before he began this tour. DJ Head and Billy were like Cheech
and Chong on the tour, but Head always gave a flawless performance. I
was leery of Head because of his history with Paul Rosenberg. They were
former college roommates and also were in a group together in the past.

Living on a bus with a bunch of hard-legged men was rough, being
a married man and seeing these men with all these groupies. Groupies
were waiting at the hotel at nearly every venue. Slim’s road manager at
the time, DT, basically was an asshole; his personality was shitty. Nobody
really wanted to deal with him. I think Paul and Slim put up with him for
as long as they did because they felt sorry for him because he had cancer
the year before. He treated the fans like shit and fucked with our food.
When no one was around, he would throw away the food because he
wanted all of us to be vegetarians. He wanted to call all the shots, and it
was bothering people.

At that time, we were doing an off-the-hook show in Pittsburgh. “The
Crows” was like half hicks, half ravers, and a few thugs. A few people tried
to rush the stage. At least the stage dives decreased to about three times.
As usual, before and after the show Slim was drinking Bacardi and beer
like a fish. After the show, everyone was chilling backstage. I let the finest
girls backstage because it seemed like no one in the camp had any game.
We let this one guy in who was like the ultimate Slim fan.We noticed him
in the crowd because he had a mushroom tattooed on top of his head with
“Slim Shady” written around it. He wanted to get back and party with
Slim. He was begging, and Slim said, “OK, let him in. ” I warned him not
to start any shit, because normally we only let girls in. About ten minutes
later, I saw this dude whispering in Slim’s ear so I went over there. He says
to Slim, “Dude, I wanna snakebite you. ” We were like, “What the fuck is
he talking about; what is that?” What he was saying was that he wanted to
suck Slim’s dick, so we embarrassed the shit out of him. He was begging
to suck Slim’s dick in the dressing room. Slim freaked out because he
is homophobic as it is. We put all the guys out of the dressing room. We
laughed about it later, but it was kind of scary because Slim started seeing
some of the things he said in his songs come to pass.

We were all bonding a little more at this time. The bus was really
getting rough. We checked into hotels along the way in order to rest. I
was a twenty-four-hour worker, the first one to get up and the last one
to go to bed. I didn’t have a life on the road at all. People think security
is a glamorous job, but it isn’t. I had to create my own fun and didn’t
realize how much fun I wasn’t going to be having.We were now in Boston,
probably one of the places where we were the least wanted. We had
protesters there, and the first thing I suggested was not going into the
dressing room until it was time for us to go on, in order to avoid trouble.
We did the show and left, and everything went OK, even though they were
really protesting Slim’s lyrics. We did a radio show there, too, but there
was some obvious hating going on anyway. Folks were there because it was
free, not because they appreciated the craft. The show performance was
dry because the crowd was dry.

Our next stop was New York, and I was nervous because of all the
negative shit I had heard. The New York crowd was rough because they
didn’t get what they wanted. The dressing room was out of control
because Paul and his partner kept bringing all their boys in the dressing
room. One person from Vibe was trying to dog his way into the dressing
room when Slim didn’t want to see any press. Next thing I know, I see a
negative write-up in the magazine; I guess he was trying to dog me out
for being so big. The show was off the hook. Slim was drunk and high
and was doing some crazy shit. He had me busting my ass. He was so
fucked up, I thought he was going to OD. He decided he really wanted to
give it to the crowd. He climbed up about fifteen feet to the top speaker
and jumped down into the crowd. The crowd went nuts, and it was like a
damn swimming pool. I was thinking, How the fuck am I going to get him
from the middle of the crowd? I proceeded to dive in, like Moses parting
the Red Sea, and landed at the bottom and grabbed Slim. People were
grabbing his shirt and pulling at his pants. On our way back to the stage,
they started doing the same to me, and I was just beating people off of us.
At that point, I knew that he was trying to test me to see just how much I
had his back. I knew he was going to have me working. Later that night,
we went to Club Shine in downtown NYC. Slim had continued drinking
heavily at Shine and became paranoid about some Latino dudes staring
him down. Of course, Slim took it as a threat and confronted the guys and
was cursing at them.The next thing I knew, Slim had swung on one of the
three guys. I immediately pushed the dudes back and grabbed Slim and
carried him out the side door to the limo. After putting him in the limo
where he was safe, the promoter of Club Shine and I had an altercation.
The promoter was demanding that Slim come back into the club. When I
told him no, he was pissed. At that point, I was done talking and ready to
whip some ass! The promoter was very disrespectful. While the promoter
continued to blah, blah, I ate my fully lit Cuban cigar. That was enough
for the promoter to back the fuck up and say, “Fuck it!” We then left to
prepare for the next day.