Eminem mourns the 'tortured existence' of Slim Shady with Detroit newspaper 'obituary'

The Real Slim Shady can’t stand up… because he’s dead. 

As readers of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News noticed on Monday, Eminem isn’t kidding about plans to kill off his alter ego. The print edition of both papers published an obituary to Slim, as part of a covert advertisement for the rapper’s upcoming new album, The Death of Slim Shady. 

"Slim Shady Made Lasting Impressions," the headline declared, adding, “Fans 'Will Never Forget' Controversial Rapper."

Alongside a photo of Eminem in overalls and a hockey mask — a look that he sported during his 2000 “Up in Smoke” tour — the obit dubs Slim a “product of Detroit who began his career there as a rogue splinter in the flourishing underground rap scene of the mid to late 1990's.”

It adds that Slim became a household name after his 1999 debut before exposing his audience to “extreme darkness” and leading “millions of music fans down a road that glorified a demonstrably nihilistic worldview." The obit also ominously claims that Slim met a “horrific end.”

“The legacy he leaves behind is no closer to resolution than the manner in which this character departed this world,” the piece concludes. “May he truly find the peace in an afterlife that he could not find on Earth."

Though the “obituary” is marked as an advertisement, it makes no direct reference to Eminem or the upcoming album by name — but fans were quick to connect the dots. Some social media users are speculating that the rapper hid the title of his first single somewhere in the obit copy. 

“I don’t want to reach or get anyone’s hopes up, but isn’t it weird they’d have quotation marks on ‘Will Never Forget’? Could be a song title or single?,” one X user speculated, while another joked, “New Eminem single “Will Never Forget” coming real soon…”

The ad comes weeks after Eminem announced that he was killing off his persona with a true crime-esque trailer. 50 Cent shows up in a cameo appearance to say, "he's not a friend, he's a psychopath," while Eminem himself is a blurred out witness who declares, “I knew it was only a matter of time for Slim.”

Eminem created his Slim Shady persona back when he was an emerging Detroit artist, which led to the release of his sophomore album, The Slim Shady LP.

The Death of Slim Shady is set to be released this summer.