Eminem recalled to Rolling Stone in 2004, “I cried just going to see him at the foster home. The day he was taken away, I was the only one allowed to see him. They had come and got him out of school. He didn’t know what the f--- was going on. The same thing that had happened in my life was happening in his.”
“When he was taken away I always said if I ever get in a position to take him, I would take him. I tried to apply for full custody when I was 20, but I didn’t have the means,” he said.
The musician's fight for custody of his brother came amid a tumultuous relationship with mom Nelson, having famously dissed her in some of his earlier songs, including the 2002 track "Cleanin' Out My Closet." which led to Nelson suing her son for $11 million for defamation.
Following his guardianship over the years, Nathan, who is now married with three children, credits his older brother as being “the best role model I could have had.”