Eminem met Kimberly Ann Scott when they were teenagers in 1988, and began a turbulent relationship that would last almost two decades, and featured heavily in the rapper’s song.

Eminem and Kim first began dating in 1988(Image: The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)

Eminem’s rocky romance with Kimberly Ann Scott inspired several of his biggest hits, but after two weddings and a divorce, they finally called it quits.

The pair met each other at a house party when they were teenagers in 1988, and while Eminem – real name Marshall Mathers – was 15, Kim was just 13. “I’m standing on top of their coffee table with my shirt off, with a Kangol on, mocking the words to LL Cool J’s ‘I’m Bad.’ And I turn around and she’s at the door smoking,” the Love The Way You Lie hitmaker recalled in his 2014 book How It All Got Started: Lessons in Life, Art and Entrepreneurship from Hip Hop Icons. Eminem then took Kim home to his mother, and the teenager lived there temporarily after facing hardship at her own home with her mother and twin sister Dawn. “Marshall arrived home from school with a tall, sulky blonde girl,” the rapper’s mother Debbie Nelson wrote in her 2008 memoir, My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem. “He introduced her as Kim Scott and said she needed a place to stay. I was happy to help out.”

Kim has struggled in recent years after the breakdown of her relationship (Image: Getty Images)

The childhood sweethearts first met when Eminem was 15 and Kim was 13 (Image: The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)

Eminem and Kim welcomed their daughter Hailie, on Christmas Day in 1995, and the rapper said becoming a father was a “wake-up call” for him which forced him to “get my a** in gear”. He told Q magazine in 2001: “Everything that I am doing right now is for Hailie… the money – it’s for her college.” Eminem and Kim then tied the knot in June 1999, shortly before he left to go on his first tour, but the couple were rocked by cheating allegations while he was away. In 2007, Kim said she married Eminem to keep him “faithful and grounded” before he went on tour, but their marriage was devastated by infidelity.

In 2001, they split, and Kim began dating Eric Hartter. The couple welcomed Stevie Laine Scott in April 2002, but just three years later, Kim was back with Eminem. The rapper even legally adopted Stevie when he and Kim got back together, and in January 2006, they remarried in an intimate ceremony in Michigan. Eminem also legally adopted his niece Alaina Marie Scott, who was the daughter of Kim’s sister Dawn. “I have full custody of my niece,” he told Rolling Stone in 2004. “My niece has been a part of my life ever since she was born.” Sadly, Dawn passed away in 2016 due to a suspected overdose.

Eminem said he turned his life around when his daughter Hailie was born

Hailie recently married her partner Evan McClintock in a lavish wedding(Image: hailiejade/Instagram)

Just over a year later, Eminem filed for divorce, and Kim’s attorney said in a statement that there was “a lot of sadness about why this didn’t work out”. Her lawyer Michael J. Smith told People at the time: “They’re life-long friends, lovers, have been husband and wife, they’re raising children together. It’s not the end and it’s not over between them.”

Kim has stayed out of the spotlight since her divorce from the rapper in 2006, but she hit the headlines in 2015 after reports of a suicide attempt. According to reports, Kim drove her car into a pole after taking prescription pills and drinking rum, and she later admitted that she had tried to take her own life. “I never expected to make it out of that alive. I apologised immensely. I did not even expect to make it through that, and I told [police] that I tried to do this on purpose,” she said in an interview on 95.5 WKQI’s Mojo in the Morning.

Kim attempted suicide in 2021 following the death of her mother (Image: Twitter)

Sadly, in 2021, Kim tried to take her own life again following the death of her mother Kathleen. Just days after she buried her 65-year-old mother, paramedics were called to Kim’s home, and they found her distressed and covered in blood with cuts on her legs.

Last year, Kim revealed she and Eminem were on good terms as they prepared for the daughter Hailie’s wedding. In a brief chat with The US Sun, she confirmed they would both be attending the nuptials, and said she’s still friendly with her famous ex. When asked how often she sees her former husband, she laughed: “Not often, but often enough!”