The two had a fraught relationship that was immortalized in many of Eminem’s earliest hits.
Debbie Nelson, a single mother from Missouri whose tumultuous relationship with her eldest son, the rapper Eminem, provided fodder for some of his early hits, died on Monday. She was 69.
The death was confirmed by Dennis Dennehy, a longtime representative for Eminem, who did not cite a cause or say where she died.
Ms. Nelson was known for her fraught relationship with Eminem, who through his talent for hip-hop went from being a bullied little boy named Marshall Mathers to a hugely successful rapper. He wrote about their struggles in several songs, including one of his biggest hits.
In his rage-fueled, freewheeling 2002 single “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” Eminem has a reckoning with his mother over his upbringing, accusing her of neglect, abuse and prescription-pill abuse.
In the chorus, he sarcastically apologizes for making her cry, only to add, “How dare you try to take what you didn’t help me to get?”
Ms. Nelson, who sued her son for defamation in 1999 over another unflattering representation of her in his song “My Name Is,” shared her account of their relationship in a no-holds-barred memoir, “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,” which was published in 2008.
