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

by Williams, Byron

  I had basically been cooped up for the entire road trip, catering to Slim and running him around. Koln was a nice city with a lot of nice restaurants, nice American restaurants. At this point, I had lost about ten pounds, so I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. And I was looking to get out and see some sights. When I had some downtime, Proof was my hanging partner. On this particular night, we got together with some people we had met. One guy owned a clothing store with his cousin and sister. They were Ethiopians and were pretty cool. They took us out to what they considered their hood, but again, there were all different races and all these exotic-looking women. We went to one bar, and the setup was that you would pay and get a ticket, and when you got something from the bar, you got your ticket punched and paid for all your punches as you were leaving the club. You had to keep good track, because at the end they would hit you up. Upon entering the club, everyone had to have a double shot of Absolute and cranberry juice. I thought it was cool that they set you up like that at the beginning. The five of us went in, and they were playing nothing but American music, everything from Puffy to Jay-Z to 95 South, and I mean the DJ was on jam. I felt like I was back at home. Proof and I were just relaxing, having some drinks and getting a lot of attention because we didn’t really fit in; we weren’t dressed like everybody else and looked like we were from the States. Women were coming around us, hoping we would talk to them, but Proof and I were waiting for the music to come on that we wanted to dance to, and then we were going to ask some ladies to dance.

  The people we were with were already dancing and were asking us when we were going to dance, and I was like, “Hold on. I’ll be out there to show you a little something. ” We were having a ball. It was hot as hell in that club, and I had on a T-shirt and flannel. Needless to say, it didn’t take long at all before I came out of that flannel. The DJ started really bumping, so I grabbed this one young lady, and I guess folks didn’t think a man of my 6’8”, 320 pound stature could put it down like I did. I have always been a good dancer, and I don’t think there’s a man out there my size who can dance as well as I can. I was showing her how we do it in Detroit, and I was breaking it down from the old to the new, and I knew I was throwing down because the floor had cleared up and all the women were staring in awe. Next thing I knew, Proof grabbed a girl and was doing his thing, and Proof and I turned the club out.We danced with these girls for at least fortyfive minutes, and there were ladies waiting in line to dance with us.

  Every time we would come off the floor, someone else would come up right away and ask us to dance. Then we saw people trying to imitate our dance moves, and that, for me, was the most fun part of the tour. I really enjoyed myself. It gave me a chance to forget about Slim. When he goes to a club, you can forget about having any fun at all.You always have to watch for him to get into a fight or for someone to bump him, and the man has a bladder the size of a peanut. Every five minutes, he would have to go to the bathroom, which meant that I would have to follow him to the bathroom. He drank like a fish, and as quickly as the liquor went in, it came out. If he wanted to holler at a girl, I would have to hang nearby to let him do his thing and not crowd his space. If we were in a place where there were a lot of guys who knew who he was but were giving him grim looks, I would stick close by him. I never let anyone get close to him or do anything to him. But Koln was a nice time, a real good time.

  The only thing that sticks in the back of my mind about Koln that made me feel like I was some kind of a robot was when Slim and Nicole wanted to go shopping. I was like, “OK, give me a few minutes because I have to use the bathroom. ” Number two that is. So I’m doing my thing and not five minutes later Slim is banging on the door trying to rush me, threatening to leave without me. I was like, “So be it if that’s what you choose to do. Damn, can I take a shit?” I mean, I wasn’t going to have a sequel to it later on. I said, “I am allowed to take one shit a day, right? Just give me a moment in here!” He still was trying to rush me, and I was like, “Man, I am not rushing this. This is my personal time, ”blah, blah, blah. “If y’all are in that much of a rush, then go! I don’t appreciate you rushing me when I’m letting nature take its course. ” Finally, he went and waited in the lobby. To me, he was trying to play big shot in front of Nicole to give the image that he doesn’t even allow his people to take a shit, and when he says, “Let’s go, ” it is time to go, but that wasn’t the case on that day because I was taking my time. That shit pissed me off, and I told him how I felt. I said, “Are you in that much of a rush where I can’t even take a shit? The stores don’t close for another six hours. C’mon man, its not that serious. ” He tried to laugh it off, and Nicole was looking at me like, “Damn, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, you know?” That was the only negative memory I have of Koln.

  A few days passed, and thank God we were on our way out of Germany into the UK to do some shows. The shows went well. Nothing spectacular happened except that on the 9th, Slim had a gold party for the UK sales. I got a chance to take some pictures of him with a couple of the Spice Girls. I now understand why they call that girl Scary Spice. Her acne was so fucking bad, it looked like someone was playing connect-the-dots on her face, plus she had a real shitty attitude. She was not nice at all. Regardless, the gold party went well, and we were all supposed to be presented plaques for the success of the Slim Shady Tour, but unfortunately the person who was responsible for the plaques lost all of them—how I do not know. On November 10th, we had made it to Glasgow, Scotland. That place was pretty cool. Slim slept in there, so I had a chance to go out and do some shopping for my family, as well as do some sightseeing. I bought my wife a real nice crystal glass slipper for the curio cabinet. For me, that was a symbol that I would do anything for her, because when I was in Europe I realized that I needed to grow and to reinvent myself. I had been fasting for the past six days because I knew we were going to Amsterdam and that was the place where I made a mistake on the last tour, drinking the mushroom tea, eating the hash brownies—I was totally out of character. I was trying to blend in and have some fun during my downtime, but all I did was demonstrate stupidity to the highest level.

  This time, I was going to be prepared because Amsterdam was no joke. It is a place where you can basically do whatever you want to do. If you want to smoke weed, then you can smoke weed; if you want to piss outside, they have these little holes where you can piss outside; if you want to go get a prostitute, they have an area where you can do that, and the prostitutes are actually pretty nice looking. For me, being married and everything, I was fasting to cleanse my soul and strengthen my discipline. I mean, you see a lot of guys doing their thing over there, but for me that would get to my conscience. I was preparing myself to go home because the end of the tour was approaching, as well, and a lot of us were tired at this point. Glasgow was going to be Nicole’s last spot. Slim was going to be doing a lot of photo shoots for his album there, and he wasn’t going to have much time for her so he went ahead and sent her back. One thing we found out about the women in Scotland was that they don’t drink beer, they drink bourbon, scotch—hard liquor—and they drink it straight. And they can out drink any man in the US!

  We were off on the 11th to Amsterdam, and I was taking some time out to do some reflection and preparing myself to go home on the 13th. I was also preparing myself for my resignation as Slim’s bodyguard. I felt as though I had seen enough; I mean, what else could there be? I felt like, from my experiences and from my reading, especially my reading of the Bible, that I had seen everything that I needed to see. I had been all around the world damn near twice, and I felt like I had gathered all the necessary resources for me to get my own label together and get my own group, the Wadsquad, off the ground. By this time, Slim and Paul had made it clear that they weren’t going to be increasing my pay. I weighed this all against the fact that I was missing the constant growth of my baby boy. My eldest son was getting smarter and smarter.The responsibility on my wife’s shoulders was gett
ing to be overwhelming. This had to come to an end.

  The idea came to me at this time to write this book. I still had my job with General Motors to go back to.The primary reason for my fasting was so that the Lord would give me clarity about my decisions. All I wanted was a clean break from Slim and Paul. I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize my pay, I was going to work as they needed me to until the tour ended in December and just resign in January. I felt as though I could gain no more. I took this whole experience working with him as an internship, a lesson that brought me even closer to God. I learned to lean on the Lord more than to depend on man. Depending on Paul and Slim was a letdown every time.They were extremely undependable.They had no idea that a man’s word is his bond. They were so quick to make a promise and then renege. I was raised that your word is your bond—it is all you have, and without that, you have nothing. Plus, I knew that I was worth more than what they were paying. I was worth more than they thought I was.

  This period made me look back over history at slavery and servitude. I knew I was no servant, but I was definitely making slave wages. I never wanted to bring up racial issues, but I have to say that Slim and Paul were very smooth in masquerading their attitudes toward the blacks in the Shady camp. The way they showed their racial attitudes was in the way they paid people. How are you going to pay a sound man $1, 500 for two and a half hours of work, five days a week, but yet you pay the security guy who works 24-7—meaning if you go to the bathroom or want to go see a girl in the middle of the night he has to be there—only $1, 200 a week?? I was on call twenty-four hours, and my workdays consisted of seventeen hours. I got a minimal amount of sleep. At that point, I realized that I couldn’t be their house nigger any longer; I couldn’t be their token anymore—it wasn’t going to happen. I got everything together as far as my music, my resources, and my connections.

  I had met a lot of important people during this tour. When Slim would do his interviews, my job was to coordinate who would see him next, and I would slide these people my business card. I would politic with them briefly, exchange information, and stay in touch with them when I got home. I realized, through reading my Bible and being away from home, that I belonged back at home raising my own family and not away raising this man while he was raising hell. It took that trip to Europe, which I didn’t want to go on, to realize this. When you are that far away from your family on the other side of the world, it doesn’t matter how much money you are making. I realized the truth in the adage that money cannot buy happiness. Slim is a prime example of this because the man has a lot of money, but he is miserable—the man is miserable! His wife doesn’t make him happy; the music doesn’t make him happy; only his daughter makes him happy. He hates to be alone, and he can’t sleep alone without taking something like a Vicodin to help him sleep. He is not happy. He chases his breakfast of cheese eggs with Ecstasy. He would take one half, then the other half a couple of hours later. It was routine, and I got tired of that.

  What was the point of me watching this man destroy his life? If I have to sit back and watch some man destroy himself, at least let me get paid right for it. At least let me get paid right if I have to watch this man throw his life down the tubes. He and I had a conversation once where he told me that he felt like he didn’t need the drugs to do a show anymore, whereas once upon a time he felt dependent on them. I told him to stop, but apparently he didn’t have the discipline necessary to do so at that time. He asked me how I remained so disciplined all the time, and I told him it was God. I can recall the one time I saw him read a Bible, and that was because I presented it to him.That was after a big blowout argument he had with Kim on the phone toward the end of the tour, at a point after he sent Nicole home. He wanted to fly Kim out for the rest of the tour, as he was feeling guilty about flying the other two girls out. He had the feeling that Kim was cheating on him because he had set her up in an apartment, and she was never there, no matter what time he called. So, all of a sudden he wanted to play the family man. I can’t blame him for that either, nor do I blame him for any of the things he did on the road because I am sure Kim was doing her share of dirt, as well.

  I can remember one day Slim and Kim got into a big argument, and I had never seen him so upset. He was red and teary eyed but he didn’t cry. He was frustrated. On the day when he advised Nicole she would be going home, it was no big deal to her because she always had nice things, and she always traveled, so she was cool with it. However, Slim was in this lounge looking absolutely miserable. He looked devastated that he had all this money but was still miserable because of the way he was brought up. He’s not a cultured man. A lot of times I tried to cultivate and support him, even when I knew he was wrong, because I felt like anybody could be changed at any given moment to do better. I was his biggest supporter. I’m not one to judge. So what I did at that moment was the only thing I could do. I gave him my Bible and told him to read Psalm 121. I said, “Slim, meet God; God, meet Slim. You should read this every day, man. I’m not trying to force religion on you, but this is how I make it through all this nonsense in the world and in this industry. ” I always told Slim not to let this industry pull him away from his family, where his family was second. I had started to follow my own advice because I saw how the game had taken me away and changed me. Luckily, I was able to get back to work and myself as a better, new and improved Byron Williams; a better, new and improved husband; a better, new and improved father; a better, new and improved businessman. I had gained so much on this tour but at the same time lost so much in the making. I gave Slim that Bible, and he read it, and he came out and said, “Thanks, Naz, ” and hugged me. I felt good knowing that I had done something positive for this man and, for that moment, changed him in some way. I knew it was going to take more than one time, but I felt good presenting him that material to read at that time, and that is the way I tried to support him from time to time.

  November 12th—the dreaded Amsterdam The one thing I didn’t have to worry about was making the same mistake twice. This go-round to Amsterdam was pretty mild. I am glad I did what I did the last time I was there, though, to get it out of my system, but what’s done is done. Well, everyone was feeling sick again, and we were also tired and recuperating from the little tour bus and happy to be going home soon. The tour was scheduled to end on the 17th, and Slim was ready to go home and deal with his family problems, and everyone was ready to go home. The tour was short in actual time, but a lot of long events happened. The show was real hype that night. From what I understand, the Amsterdam crowd doesn’t get hype for a lot of people because they are all too high to do so, but they got up for Slim. It was probably one of the most hype shows given there. Proof basically took the show because he jumped up from the stage to the balcony. I don’t know how he did it. He was sliding down poles and everything. The only incident we had was when this guy was trying to grab Slim’s leg and pull him off the stage, but I snatched the guy out of the crowd and threw him down some stairs backstage. MTV had it all on tape. We were supposed to leave the day after the show, but everything was thrown off schedule because instead we flew to the MTV Music Awards. That went smoothly, and we decided to end the tour early on the 14th and lie to the people, telling them that Slim took ill and was unable to finish the tour.

  The rest of the tour was scheduled to take place in Germany, and none of us were looking forward to going back to Germany. Germany had some good people there, but it was overall a depressing place. So we were in Amsterdam to do the photo shoot, and Slim decided that he didn’t want to do it, just like in New York. A $10, 000 photo shoot, and we’re going through this again. Mark was trying to get Slim up, and Slim didn’t want to get out of bed. Mark called Paul, who was not in any big rush to come out of his room to help get Slim out of bed. So, Mark asked me to see if I could talk to Slim to get him out of bed. I was like, “Man, why do y’all always come to me? This is not what I get paid to do. ” It seemed like I was the only one who could get through to him. I went in
to Slim’s room about a half hour after Mark left and said, “All right, Slim, we got to go do this photo shoot. ” I turned on the shower, opened the curtains, and put the “Chronic 2001” tape in the box. I said, “C’mon man, tomorrow we get to go home and see our ladies and our children, and you know Hailey’s going to be so happy to see you. C’mon, and let’s get this day started. ”

  It was 2:00 p. m. already, and we were supposed to do the shoot earlier that morning, but he wasn’t going to do it at all. I told him, “If you don’t do it now, they’re just going to make you come back and do it on your off time, which costs more money. And if you want to quit your job, that’s cool—you can always go back and work at Gilbert’s. ” Finally, he got up and got into the shower, and I walked out. I guess the mention of Gilbert’s hit a sore spot. Gilbert’s is where he used to wash dishes before he got his deal, but they fired him a few years back on Christmas. The mention of that place always worked on Slim. Anyway, Amsterdam was full of a lot of important record executives, who were Paul’s buddies. Paul’s friends were cool—they acted nothing like Paul. Paul was an asshole. Anyway, there was Shecky Green, the president of Game Records; Stretch Armstrong from Hot 97; Reef, one of the top producers—all of the bigwigs were there, and we didn’t know why, but we knew it was something important. Anytime you see those guys, it’s definitely about business. There’s some money involved in the music industry. Me and Proof kicked it around to see if we could find out what they were doing there, but they kept it on the down low. They could have been just vacationing or something, because they definitely had money like that to kick it. Regardless, Amsterdam went smoothly, Slim did his photo shoot, and the next day we were supposed to go home.