Meet rapper Eminem’s daughter, Hailie Jade Mathers – singing on her dad’s music earned her the Guinness World Record for youngest R&B chart entrant and now she hosts her own podcast
Maybe you wouldn’t think it from his brash persona as Slim Shady, but rapper Eminem has always credited his success to his daughter, Hailie Jade Mathers. From the day she was born, he said it was her who gave him purpose.
“She has been my main source of drive and motivation, especially when she was first born. I didn’t have a career yet, I didn’t have money, I didn’t have a place to live. She’s always been the driving force for me to stay busy, stay focused, and my number one reason for fear of failure,” Eminem told MTV in 2002.
In the years since, 26-year-old Mathers has graduated from university and built a career as a social media personality. She recently launched a podcast called Just a Little Shady – a reference to her father’s hit song The Real Slim Shady – where she talks about her life and pop culture.
So what else do we know about the daughter of the bestselling rapper in history?
Her mum is the famous “Kim” in Eminem’s songs
Eminem and Kimberly Scott started dating in their teens. After Scott gave birth to Mathers in 1995, the couple married twice, then split up for good. The relationship, marred by poverty and infidelity, spawned several controversial songs, including Kim and ’97 Bonnie and Clyde.
Eminem, who was abandoned by his own father, often said publicly that he wanted to do better in his own parenting efforts. Mathers was raised with two stepsiblings, Alaina, Scott’s sister’s daughter; and Stevie, Scott’s child with another man.
She holds a Guinness World Record title
Aside from mentioning Mathers frequently throughout his songs, Eminem peppered a few with her vocals too. A young Mathers coos on ’97 Bonnie and Clyde, questions her father’s sanity on My Dad’s Gone Crazy (a song for which she holds a Guinness World Record title as the youngest R&B chart entrant), and asks about rapper Ja Rule’s height on the diss track Hailie’s Revenge.
She indirectly caused a feud between Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly
In 2012, rapper Machine Gun Kelly tweeted, “I just saw a picture of Eminem’s daughter … And I have to say, she is hot as f***,” referring to a then-16-year-old Mathers. (Erm, creepy, much?)
He deleted the tweet, but Eminem (unsurprisingly) still held a grudge. Machine Gun Kelly claimed that his songs were then banned from Shade 45, Eminem’s channel on Sirius XM, from that point on.
He went on to mock Eminem on No Reason, setting off a lengthy exchange of diss tracks between the pair, including MGK’s Rap Devil and Eminem’s Not Alike, Killshot, and Unaccommodating.
She was a strait-laced child
Eminem gained notoriety in the 2000s not just for his dark lyrics, but also for his drug addiction. In contrast, his daughter reportedly grew up as a stickler for rules.
In her podcast, she shared how she started obsessing over her grades in middle school and refused to associate with friends who drank alcohol. “I never got in trouble growing up. I thought if I did anything wrong, I was like, a terrible human. Not that those things are even wrong, that’s just what kids do in high school, I was just so straight and narrow,” she confessed.
She added that she made a decision to relax and change her outlook at university, where she joined a sorority, reconnected with old friends, and began dating her long-term boyfriend, Evan McClintock.
She’s got both beauty and brains
In 2013, Mathers was crowned Chippewa Valley High School’s homecoming queen, which her dad reportedly watched out of sight from inside the school so as not to draw attention away from her achievement. Her school’s newsletter showed that Mathers played volleyball as well as took part in the National Honour Society, art club, key club and student council alongside her studies, and graduated with the highest distinction.
She now holds a degree in psychology from Michigan State University.
In an episode of Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson on YouTube, Eminem talked about his daughter’s achievements: “She’s doing good. She’s made me proud for sure, she’s graduated from college. When I think about my accomplishments, that’s probably the thing I’m the most proud of – being able to raise kids.”
