When Eminem conjured up “Brain Damage”, the fictitious tale of being bullied and beaten in school, he name dropped a particular bully. Deangelo Bailey sued the rapper two years ago and alleged that a false image of him was painted and disrupted his privacy.
Now a Michigan state appeals court rules that Bailey cannot pursue his lawsuit against Em. The three judges felt that the words in the song, off of The Slim Shady LP were not to be taken literally and that some of the imagery used in the song would be deemed figurative speech by a “reasonable listener.”
The court also ruled that Bailey did not present any factual issues in his lawsuit. Bailey did admit to bullying Eminem but said that he had only given the blonde emcee a “little shove” and a “bump.”
“The fact that there may have been differences in the precise facts didn’t matter because the gist of the story was true by Bailey’s own admission,” Mary Massaron Ross, an attorney for Eminem, told the Associated Press.
