Betty Kresin, Eminem’s maternal grandmother, married at age 14. She had six children from 3 different marriages.
She first married Bob Nelson. She gave birth to her daughter Debbie in 1955. She accuses her first husband, Bob Nelson, of being verbally abusive. They both moved to Warren, Michigan to be closer to Betty’s stepmother. Despite the problems the couple experienced, she gave Bob two more sons, Todd and Steven. They divorced in the early 1960s and Betty returned to her hometown of St. Joseph, where she met Ron Gilpin, her second husband, with whom she had two more children. One of them is Betti Schmitt (Eminem’s aunt and Debbie’s half-sister), who is still in contact and on good terms with Eminem. Ron Gilpin was an alcoholic who used to beat up his entire family. Violence was part of his daily life. Ron left his family in 1968. Dramas surrounded Betty’s family. In 1991, Todd Nelson murdered her brother-in-law, Mike Harris, in self-defense. He was sentenced to prison for 8 years. Betty’s sixth son from a third marriage, Ronnie Polkingharn, was Eminem’s uncle and closest friend. He committed suicide in 1991.
Eminem grew up for a time in his grandmother’s house. She talks about his harsh living conditions in Detroit:
“It was a poor school and they wanted their shoes. He was one of the only white children who attended this segregated school. And he once had his shoes taken off and he had to come home in the middle of a snowstorm with no shoes. But the story that people keep asking me: “he was unconscious and almost died and all these doctors…”, now I don’t know anything about this and I am his grandmother. »
People should think twice before calling Marshall a racist.
Betty was mad at Marshall because he never came to Ronnie’s funeral. In fact, Marshall became depressed and swallowed a bottle of Tylenol and survived another suicide attempt. He couldn’t go to Ronnie’s funeral, his grief was too great.
“I was a little bit bitter that he wrote about my dead son, because in the last five years of my dead son, Marshall hadn’t even seen him. Marshall, Eminem, and my son Ronnie were very close. He idolized Ronnie and Ronnie loved him. He didn’t even come to Ronnie’s funeral and he never put the first flower on Ronnie’s grave. He doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t go near the grave. The chain that Marshall wears around his neck, the dog tag… that was Ronnie’s. I gave him the dog tag, he makes duplicates, he sells them now, and that really broke my heart because this is something sacred to me that I gave to the boy. If my son could speak to you today from the grave, he would say, “Marshall, stop some of the garbage, make peace with your family, life is too short.”
Marshall had a good relationship with his grandmother until she wanted to use Ronnie’s voice on tape. He intended to do this as a tribute to her deceased uncle, but Betty thought she was disrespecting her son. In 2002, both reconciled.
Betty Kresin is currently writing a book about her grandson to be titled “The Tie That Binds.”
Betty says that she is proud of her grandson and that she is on his side.