"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" (9 page)

police of
ficers. I asked him to have the officers in position when the plane
landed. I needed to be sure because my biggest fear was that there would
be more Death Row guys waiting for us at the terminal. I told Dean that a
guy from Death Row had just tried to strong-arm Slim. I told everybody to
be at the door as soon as the plane landed. The shit was getting serious.

I told the stewardess what was going on and that she needed to let
the pilot know to make an announcement upon our exit. The deal was to
let first class off first, or else there was going to be some drama going down
on the plane. The flight attendant was in a state of panic. She knew about
Death Row through the negative press. My people and me had our seat
belts off as soon as the plane started coasting. The Death Row guys were
looking around, looking like trouble. The pilot made the announcement
for everyone to remain seated until first class exited the plane, using the
excuse that there was a sick passenger in first class who needed to exit.
I grabbed my wife’s hand. There were a few passengers who had gotten
wind of what was going down and were like, “Fuck that. I’m not waiting
on him, ” you know, the typical scared-as-hell white people. I told them
that they would have to get back because we were getting off the plane
first. Before that door even opened all the way, we were walking off that
plane, and I mean speed walking. Five off-duty police officers formed a
circle around all of us and escorted us to the limo. There were two limos
and a van. One limo was used as a decoy, and the van was used to get
our luggage. The pilot held the passengers in for an extra five minutes
to give us a head start. Paul, “Mr. Know It All About Security, Mr. Paper
Gangster, ” looked like a punk, he was so afraid. When the police officers
were taking us to the car, the first thing out of his mouth was this weak
little, “Hey, what about me? Isn’t anybody going to stay with me?”

Paul was just standing in the middle of the airport whining. We
never broke stride, and if someone was after us, he would have been the
first one hit, standing there whining because he had a connecting flight
from California to New York. I don’t know if anyone stayed with him; all
I know is it looked like a movie, with Paul standing there looking scared
shitless whimpering out, “Hey, Slim, call me, man. . . call me. ” We made
it safely back to the hotel, and we were well protected on our trip back.
The decoy limo left first, and we took off in the other direction, toward
the hotel. Once at the hotel, we checked into another hotel under aliases,
just to play it safe. My wife and I spent a sleepless night, and she was
like, “Man, you have an exciting job, ” and I was like, “Exciting? Man, this
shit is life threatening!” I didn’t expect all of this. I just wanted to make
some money and make some connections and get the Wadsquad off the
ground, maybe get into a few skirmishes—not this. The next morning,
Interscope handpicked some police officers to stand outside Slim’s door,
while I dropped my wife off at the airport. I was in the limo after dropping
my wife off, and the limo driver told me he heard that we got into it with
Death Row last night. I was like, “How do you know that?” and he was
like, “People talk, man. I used to drive for Death Row. ” I must have had
the look of fear on my face. I thought it was a setup and they had me, but
I guess my mind was playing tricks on me. I said, “Damn, I didn’t expect
it to go down like this, ” and the guy said, “No, man, it’s cool. I don’t
drive for them anymore; I used to, ” and he went on to tell me how he
wasn’t originally from California but from Brooklyn, so we kicked it, and
he turned out to be OK.

But as soon as he dropped me off at the hotel, we switched hotels
again because I didn’t want to take any chances, and within a twenty-fourhour period, we switched hotels three times.That day, we had to meet Dre
in the studio, but before we did that we met with Interscope to tell Jimmy
Iovine that he was going to have to do something about this bullshit
because it was way out of hand. He basically blew the whole thing off. He
said, “Don’t let those guys get to you. They do this all the time. You’re the
new kid on the block. You’re a white kid, and they’re going to try to come
at you and intimidate you. That’s just part of the game. ” I interjected at
this point and said, “Look, Mr. Iovine, you and I have never had any words,
but this man has a daughter at home, I have a family back home, and we
are trying to make it back to them, but we are basically sitting out here
naked. What I need you to do is to allow me to handpick some extra help,
preferably some guys who are armed. ” Although I was certified, I was still
waiting on my permits. I had pepper spray, but this was LA, and these
guys eat pepper spray for lunch. So Jimmy Iovine called the Death Row
guys on the phone, telling them to come up while we were sitting right
there in the office.

Their lawyer called Jimmy right back, and he told their lawyer to
come up to his office, as well. I was like,“Now, why did you do that? I didn’t
come up here to see these guys again; I just looked at them all weekend.
I came up here to get some extra help, not meet with these guys. ” Slim
and I were sitting there with no guns, no vests, just butt-ass naked. He was
like, “Don’t worry about it. I know how to deal with these guys. ” One of
the street representatives from Death Row was on his way up. Slim and
I quickly had to scurry to the next office over, where a gentleman named
David Cohen worked, who was in charge of hiring security for various
people. He was a nice guy, and we told him what happened. Since we were
next door to the office where the Death Row representatives were, we
couldn’t talk too loudly. We were told not to leave the building until the
Death Row guy had been gone at least a half hour. It was just real hectic.
One thing I learned sitting in that office with Mr. Cohen was that I did
not have to accept the minimal amount of money that I was making. I was
able to handpick and interview the guys whom I wanted to work with me.
Interscope paid these guys $45 an hour. So, here I was working with two
guys, whom I chose, and while they were on twelve-hour shifts each and I
was on a twenty-four-hour shift, I was making less than them. I knew for
sure I was getting pimped.

I started making mental notes at that point, and I didn’t have
anything against these guys because Lord knows they had my back. The
only thing was they were a little too old, but they had guns and were
retired and off-duty police officers, so as long as their trigger fingers
worked, that was fine with me. We got to the studio and told Dre what
happened, and basically his attitude was, “Oh, well, welcome to the world
of Death Row. You are in the bullshit now no matter what you do. ” We
were like, “Just like that?” and he was like, “Yeah, just like that. ” If you
mess with Dre, you inherit his beef. And with you being the bodyguard,
you are the first person they would try to get. Everybody said the guy from
Death Row was always starting something but wasn’t going to do shit, and
I was like, “Well, I don’t underestimate nobody. I’m not from here. ” We
did the studio, and I told Slim that we had to lay low that day and that he
couldn’t be calling all these girls up to the room because they could set us
up, you never know, but do you think he listened? He dealt with at least
three or four girls out in California, and they were OK for groupies, but
you never know who they know. Like I said before, when it came down to
beef and pussy, Slim always paid more attention to the pussy and not the
beef that was going on. Later on that evening, I really started to ask myself
why I was there. Why was I working for Slim Shady? I could have been
an everyday Joe at home with my family working at GM instead of being
out here risking my life in this crazy music industry, caught up in all this
drama. I started to feel anxious and depressed. I really began to pressure
Paul and Slim for a life insurance policy at this point because my life was
important to me, and it was damn sure important to my family, but I knew
it didn’t mean shit to Slim and Paul. Finally, we worked out a deal on a life
insurance policy, and that was the best thing that came of that drama.

Slim didn’t take the beef seriously, as long as it wasn’t in his face. I
was reading everything I could get my hands on to educate myself on the
West Coast culture. I read books on Death Row, gangs, Aftermath, EazyE—anything that could teach me something. I read about the past so that
I could learn things to help me out in the present, so that I would make
it to the future. What I was dealing with was way bigger than me—it was
bigger than life. These cats in California don’t believe in fistfighting, they
are all about the gun smoke. They only care about who smokes who first.
Personally, I have no interest in being caught up in the midst of any of
that. I decided to call Slim and have a heart-to-heart. I say, “Look, Slim,
the bottom line is we need some bulletproof vests. I have called around
to several places, and they don’t have vests in my size in stock. They say
it’s going to take three weeks to get my size in, but I don’t have time to sit
around in California for three weeks with no vest on. ” They had vests to
fit Slim because he is a small guy, but I wasn’t about to be unprotected
while he was protected. The only place I found that had my size was in
Detroit. The thing was, if Slim was wearing a vest, then I was wearing a
vest, too. So I said, “Look, Paul has finally decided to get us some vests.
Finally. I think you should take Jimmy Iovine up on his offer to pay for
you to record somewhere else, like in New York, San Francisco, or Miami.
” Slim said he liked recording in LA, so he wasn’t going to record at any
of those other studios. This conversation caused conflict between me and
Slim because I could tell by the tone of his voice that it wasn’t about him
liking to record out in LA, it was about him trying to prove that he was
some tough little white boy who wasn’t afraid of Death Row. But he was
afraid, and I knew it. He was scared.

I said, “Look, man, everybody knows you can hold your own, man.
But you keep in mind that dead rappers don’t make any money, man. We
are in over our heads here. We are sitting in the lion’s den. We need to
go home and let this cool off for a couple of days. Paul has finally agreed
to pay for the vests, and I am going home to get us some vests and try
to bring a gun back. You can stay here if you want to. I am going home
because that is the only place I can find my size vest right now. ” He took
this like I just wanted to go home and see my family, so the conversation
got on a personal level at this point. I said, “Look, man, don’t hate me
because my home situation is better than yours.You need to go home and
handle that problem, anyway. I can’t help it if my wife and kids want to
and love to see me. Don’t be mad because my wife doesn’t tell me I have
to stay in a hotel and that she doesn’t tell me that I can’t even drive the
car that I bought. My family loves to see me, so of course I am going to see
them when I go home, but I am going to get us some vests, and I will be
right back out. ” I said I would try to bring a gun, but it would be difficult
to do so since airport security knew whom I was affiliated with and had
started to do random searches on me.

I told him I wasn’t going to jeopardize my future and my life trying
to smuggle an illegal gun in, though. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to bring
back a weapon, but while I was gone, I arranged for an armed off-duty
police officer whom we had worked with before to stay with Slim. The
officer and I worked something out that when I came back he would have
a 9 mm and a 12-gauge shotgun pump for me.At home, I had already made
arrangements with Paul and Slim’s accountant to pay for the vests and all
the hardware that came with them, like the batons and the pepper spray.
I had the place I was purchasing the equipment from hold everything for
me so that it would be a quick process, because I only had two days. I got
to the place to pick up the equipment, and Paul hadn’t done one thing
he was supposed to have done. All he had to do was fax the guy over the
credit card number to pay for the equipment, but he didn’t. I went to the
place with no knowledge of this and ended up wasting my time. I tried
via every form of communication possible to contact Paul, but he never
returned my messages. I had to go over his head and get authorization
from the accountant’s assistant in order to get the equipment paid for.
Later that day I got a call from Paul, and he was all pissed off because I
went over his head, and I told him I did it because he wouldn’t respond to
any of my messages, and if he would have done what he was supposed to
do in the first place, none of this would have been necessary.

Having to wait on Paul caused me to have to stay home another
day. All Slim saw was that I took an extra day to be with my family, and
he accused me of running from the Death Row situation. I said, “Look
man, first of all, yes I spent time with my family, but my staying over was
Paul’s fault for not taking care of his business the way he was supposed
to. Second of all, I don’t have to try to prove that I’m a tough guy, that’s
you trying to prove that. If I was going to run from Death Row, I would
have busted the fuck up in Hawaii. I don’t believe you have the nerve to
say that shit to me while I am always fighting your battles and knocking
muthafuckas out, dislocating my shoulder protecting you! I don’t have
to prove I’m a tough guy. Tough guys are dead men. Only the smart guys
live. ”

Back in LA, with our equipment, I felt safe. I wasn’t on no vigilante
shit, I was on some survival shit, that’s the attitude I had being back out
there. I felt like leaving my house, leaving from Detroit to California, I