Rapper honors Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine at the WSJ Innovator Awards, admits he still hates public speaking

Nov 7, 2014 10:07 GMT  ·  By
Rapper Eminem at the WSJ Innovator Awards, honoring Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine
   Rapper Eminem at the WSJ Innovator Awards, honoring Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine

Eminem was never a celebrity in the way other entertainers are, using their time in the spotlight to draw attention to their projects and even getting into the most intimate details of their personal life on camera to promote a new album or movie. Eminem just does his job and limits media exposure as much as possible.

People have called the Detroit rapper a “recluse” and he certainly fits the bill: in recent years, we have only been privy to whatever information he was willing to share with us on a handful of appearances. We know Eminem mostly through his music, and he likes to keep it that way.

So when he does make an appearance, it’s bound to make headlines around the world.     

Eminem comes out for good friends / collaborators Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine

If there are 2 people in this world who can get Eminem to come out of “hiding,” those are Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, two of his best friends and the very people who helped him launch his music career.

Eminem flew from Detroit to New York to attend the WSJ Innovator Awards, where the two were honored for entrepreneurship and he even took the floor to say a few words about them. You will see a segment of his speech in the Instagram video below.

“Dre and Jimmy are like a force of nature,” he said. “As an example of how powerful they are, they had me fly here all the way from Detroit to speak publicly, and I really hate public speaking.”

If you’ve been following Eminem’s career even a bit, you know that he’s not exaggerating: this is really how he feels about coming out, having the spotlight shone on him and speaking in public. But he’s a good friend.

So, what happened to his face?

Another thing that got attention from the media about Eminem’s rare outing is how “gaunt and haggard” he looks, to quote the Daily Mail. Other media outlets are a bit more delicate in their description of the rapper’s appearance, saying his years-long battle with his personal demons, addiction among them, has left “warzones” on his face, in the shape of deep wrinkles where none should exist yet.

Eminem is 42 years old, and indeed, he’s struggled with addiction for years. In 2013, he opened up in a documentary about how deep he sunk during his addict days and how he came very close to dying on several occasions.

He looks older than his age, but that could also be because he’s lost a lot of weight. Even so, the Mail does a side-by-side comparison with photos from when he was just breaking into the industry, which doesn’t feel fair. No one should compare themselves later in life to how they looked when they were in their 20s and the body was at its prime, let alone have to see that in the media.

If you’re wondering why Eminem is a recluse, this kind of scrutiny he’s getting right now probably explains it: he never liked the attention all that much but he liked it even less when he was bullied based on his appearance, like most female entertainers are on a daily basis.    

When he got clean and started gaining weight, he was criticized by the tabs for being “fat,” as if that had any relevance when it came to his worth and skills as a rapper. Now, the media is saying he lost his good looks to drugs.

Eminem probably doesn’t care: he doesn’t care that the media is saying this and he doesn’t care even if it were true.

“I'm as happy as I can be, I guess. Hip-hop saved my life, man,” he told Rolling Stone last year about his young addict years. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else. I think they have a word for that — what do they call it? Idiot savant?”     

#wsjawards #eminem present the award to #drdre and #jimmylovine @eonline A video posted by Jennifer Cooper (@jencooperphoto) on Nov 11, 2014 at 10:51pm PST