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

by Williams, Byron

  She was young, but Slim didn’t know it at the time. Agnes was built like a brick house for a white girl. I have to admit, she was also very smart.This girl had her game down. She had somehow put together a fake passport. I told her before she talked to Slim I would need to see some ID because they lock people in jail in foreign countries. Everything looked legit, but I found out she used one of her friend’s information and took the picture and hooked up the ID to look real. Apparently, she was able to get into bars and shit like that. One thing you have to realize is that in the States eighteen is the legal age, but in Sweden sixteen is the legal age, and in some places in Europe, fifteen is the legal age. This girl looked every bit of twenty-two. She had a fucking body! She was hot, and she was pushing up on Slim pretty tough. Slim was like, “Why don’t you come up to my room?” and we checked her ID, which said she was nineteen years old. She was all over him. I left them, and they went up to his room, and a couple of hours later he came back down. Slim was hype, “Yo, man, that was the best fuck I ever had in my life. She came like eleven times. ” I said, “Man, she ain’t come no damn eleven times!” Slim said, “Man, you should see my sheets, they are soaked! She sucked my dick, we sixty-nined. Man, she knows how to fuck!” He was totally blown away by this girl, but at the time he didn’t know her real age—none of us did—she had fooled all of us. Her game was tight, so tight that Slim wanted to fly her out for the rest of that tour. However, when we went to get her a ticket, the authorities discovered that she was underage—only fifteen years old!

  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.

  More European Turmoil 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.

  MC Proof and Paul drunk on absinthe in London, England. 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 a
ll 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

  Paul is denying Mark a raise. Mark is pleading his case. 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.