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

by Williams, Byron

  When everyone from Dre’s camp, Xzibit’s camp, and Snoop’s camp all found out that Death Row was trying to bombard the sound check, they went downstairs to confront the issue, but the police stopped it and sent

  MC Proof and Slim clowning around in Paris, France. everybody back up, and I was just like, Yo, I’m staying with Slim because he isn’t trying to run off. I was just holding him down and letting him know what was going on, and he was kind of nervous—and drinking to ease his nerves—and from that point on it was just really nerve-racking because we didn’t know what to expect. That night during the show, we had to get back on extra watch because these guys made the statement that they were going to rush the stage, and none of the bodyguards that night could have their weapons because of a hotel security rule. And the police officers were the only ones allowed to carry weapons. But it went down pretty smoothly. The only problem I ran into was one of the police escorts disappeared on us, the one who was supposed to take us out to our van through the back way out the venue. It was really upsetting Slim, it really bothered me, and I chewed that guy’s ass something terrible because he was supposed to be working under our command. We had hired the Honolulu Police Department specifically to follow what we requested them to do. It wasn’t ego tripping, but our lives were at stake, and we didn’t have room for any mistakes, and when this guy didn’t meet us where he was supposed to meet us, it made me real nervous, and it made Slim nervous. We had to sit and wait on this guy, and I finally decided, hey, we’re going to move without this guy.We couldn’t take these kinds of chances because we had to beat the mob out of there because there was going to be a crowd of people as far as groupies and whatnot, and if Death Row was going to do something, that would be the opportune time to do it. We left about fifteen minutes before the show actually ended.

  We got in our van and had a police escort take us back. Everything went pretty smoothly up to that point, even though the situation was still nerve-racking, without having the original Honolulu police escort there. I had all kinds of thoughts going through my mind, like maybe they paid this guy off, why was this guy missing at this point in time? You know? He had a radio, and I had been talking to him on the radio, so there was no form of miscommunication, so where was he? But eventually he did show up at the hotel, and you should have seen us, it was incredible the way we were moving! For the first time, I didn’t have anybody lagging behind, and my big thing was keeping my wife near me. I told her stay near me; even though I was working with Slim she should stay near me. I had to keep an eye on her, too. It made my job kind of difficult, but she was a good sport and did everything she was supposed to. I sent her up to the room, and I took Slim up to his room and made sure he got in safely. Paul and Slim gave me numerous amounts of gratitude for a job well done that night. They appreciated, for once, what I represented. I tucked them in for the night as they chanted, “We’re alive! We’re alive!” Upon leaving, I posted two Honolulu police officers outside Slim’s door for twelve hours. We all slept well because Honolulu police secured the perimeter of the hotel, the lobby, and each entertainer’s floor. Thank God!!!!

  It was the next day, and our problems were far from over. It was time to go, but Slim was finishing a rendezvous with Nicole from the night before. He was really pushing time because we were close to missing the flight. He continued to take his time, as usual. As he was preparing to leave, I went to talk to Sarge and Rowe (Dre’s security). They told me that Dre, Snoop, Xzibit, and the rest of their crew decided to stay another day. I thought we were all flying back together, considering all the drama with Death Row, but it was cool. Or at least I thought. Slim’s crew was a little disappointed that no one told them about the change of travel plans. Upon arriving at the airport, I was on the lookout for any Death Row members. I was still uneasy about the events that took place. The plane began to board, and everything was calm.We were the last ones boarding the plane, and the flight attendant made the last-call announcement. I’m thinking to myself, This is going to be a good flight! No Death Row guys in sight! Just as were buckling our seat belts and the doors were closing, I heard “Hold that door, hold that door!” Now, I was thinking, oh, shit! It can’t be! Death Row was in the house, and they were thirteen deep! Immediately, I jumped out of my seat to tell Dean (Slim’s A&R person) to call Jimmy Iovine at Interscope. I said, “Call Jimmy right now! Tell him to have some off-duty LAPD officers at the terminal door when we land because Death Row is on this plane! I also need a cargo van with someone to get our luggage, plus two limos, one limo as a decoy. Tell Jimmy to come through for us or we’re FUCKED!!!!!” I went right to first class and alerted Paul and Slim of the situation.

  Paul’s reply was, “You got to be fucking kidding me! “I said, “It’s real man. I’ve got us set up with some added security from LAPD when we land. Jimmy Iovine has already been notified, and everything is in place. ” Slim was already out for the count because he had taken a Valium earlier. I made my rounds and informed the whole crew. In the midst of doing my job, one the guys from Death Row tried flirting with my wife. I didn’t overreact, because it may have been a ploy. I stayed focused and awake. These Death Row guys made their presence known. I was outnumbered. I remained calm. I knew they wouldn’t do too much on the plane with the US Marshals regulations. If it wasn’t for my quick thinking and calm reactions, there’s no telling what the outcome could have been.

  About four hours passed, and I was trying to relax a little bit but not too much. All I did was read my Bible, and that was the only thing I had to get me through. As soon as I put down my Bible, in came the devil. One of the Death Row guys walked past me with a couple of bottles of Hennessy in his hands. He turned toward me with a grim look, as if he knew I was with Slim. I said to myself, “OK, I can’t trip.There are thirteen of them and only one of me. I’m my only backup. ” I was watching the guy and thought he was going to use the bathroom in first class. He was looking back at me the whole time, agitating me. He walked right by the bathroom and entered into first class where Slim was sitting. I proceeded to follow, and the Death Row guys got up and followed me. I saw the guy looking for Slim. I notified the flight attendant of the situation. She made an announcement for the group of guys who were following me to have a seat. I didn’t approach the guy yet because he possibly could have known someone else in first class. Then he made a beeline right to Slim. He tapped Slim, who was asleep. I intervened, “My man, can I help you with something?” And he was like, “Naw, you can’t help me with shit. ” I said, “Let’s start over. Slim has had a long weekend, as you know. He is asleep now and is not trying to kick it about no business right now. You are up here in first class making these people uncomfortable. ” The guy was like, “Man, why are you tripping?” I told him, “I’m not tripping, I’m being very polite. Slim is not trying to kick it about any business right now! If you need to talk business, here is his manager, Paul Rosenberg. He handles all of his business conversations. ”We started to argue back and forth. By this time Slim was up, and he wanted to hear what the guy had to say. I backed up and let them talk, while watching Slim’s facial expressions.

  The guy was talking so low in Slim’s ear that I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the noise of the plane. Later on, I found out that the guy said, “Now, you know I could have jumped up on that stage the other night and fucked you up! But instead of fucking you up, I’ll kick some business. You need to come on and work with me! I got some good groups, and we can help each other out. You need to leave Dre alone anyway, because he’s a buster!” Slim told him, “I don’t appreciate you coming up here and waking me up, then bad-mouthing Dre. Plus trying to strong-arm me into working with you. Man, I don’t work like that!” I stepped in and said, “That’s enough man! You need to go on back to your seat because you are agitating him. ” He was like, “Man, who the fuck are you? You don’t know nothing about me!” I said, “Well, you don’t know nothing about me either! But you are going to find out as soon as we get off this plane
! Why don’t you get back to your seat and we can all enjoy the rest of this flight. It doesn’t have to be like this. ” He replied, “You are supposed to be Slim’s bodyguard or something?” I said “Yea, that and a little bit more. ” The guy said, “Alright!” and went back to his seat. The people around us sensed the tension and knew that we weren’t together.

  Paul asked,“Was that one of the Death Row guys?” I said,“You know that was one of the Death Row guys, man, so don’t even ask me that shit! You knew they were on this plane! There are thirteen of them and only one of me. ” I’m a strong, big fellow, but I couldn’t handle them all. They had the upper hand. This is why I always stressed getting vests for us. We needed additional security. By this time, my wife sent the stewardess up to check on me before I could make it back to check on her, and I told the stewardess what was going on. She started to panic, but I reassured her that we had everything under control. I asked Dean, the A&R guy, if he was absolutely sure that Jimmy Iovine had called and set up the off-duty

  The hardest working man in hip-hop. 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. Li
ke 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.