DeAngelo Bailey

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“	Way before my baby daughter Hailie I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey	„
	~ Eminem, "Brain Damage"

DeAngelo Bailey is an American man and childhood bully of the rapper Eminem, whom he regularly harassed through physical violence. Eminem recounted the bullying on his song "Brain Damage", after which Bailey tried to sue him for slander.

History

At the time of the bullying, Marshall Mathers (Eminem's real name) was in fourth grade and DeAngelo Bailey was in sixth. Their conflict began two days before Mathers' 9th birthday, when Bailey split his lip and knocked the wind out of him. From that point, the bullying only got worse. One incident involved Bailey beating Mathers up in the bathroom while he was urinating. Matters came to a head during recess one day when Bailey hit Mathers into a snowbank, so hard that he lost consciousness and was sent home. Mathers' ear started bleeding and he was rushed to the hospital, where doctors found he had cerebral hemorrhage, for which he was put in a coma for over a week.

Eminem later rapped about his experience of being bullied in his 1999 song "Brain Damage", detailing Bailey's assault on him in the bathroom with comic exaggeration. In April that year, Bailey, who by then was married with kids and working as a janitor, admitted to bullying Eminem in an interview with Rolling Stone: "He was the one we used to pick on. There was a bunch of us that used to mess with him. You know, bully-type things. We was having fun. Sometimes he'd fight back — depended on what mood he'd be in." In regard to the incident that caused Eminem to be hospitalized, he boasted, "Yeah, we flipped him right on his head at recess. When we didn't see him moving, we took off running. We lied and said he slipped on the ice. He was a wild kid, but back then we thought it was stupid. Hey, you have his phone number?"

In 2001, Bailey sued Eminem for $1 million, accusing him of invading his privacy and slander. His attorney wrote, "Eminem is a Caucasian male who faced criticism within the music industry that he had not suffered through difficult circumstances growing up and he was therefore a 'pretender' in the industry. [...] Eminem used Bailey, his African-American childhood schoolmate, as a pawn in his effort to stem the tide of criticism." Judge Deborah Servitto dismissed the lawsuit on October 20, 2003, even writing her own rap explaining the ruling: "Mr. Bailey complains that his rap is trash / so he's seeking compensation in the form of cash / Bailey thinks he's entitled to some monetary gain / because Eminem used his name in vain / The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact / They're an exaggeration of a childish act."