The Inside Story Of Eminem’s Career-Defining 2000 VMA Performance
by Andres Tardio
3h ago
Eminem knows how to shock an audience — and back in 2000, Shady gave the MTV VMAs a potent dose of that shock value when he took over with an insane performance. Fifteen years removed, Marshall Mathers’ “The Real Slim Shady”/”The Way I Am” medley is just as striking.
It opened with a
military line of Eminem lookalikes on New York City’s 6th Avenue,
robotically bobbing their heads to the Dr. Dre-produced beat, before
swarming Radio City Music Hall. It became a signature moment for Mathers
and for the awards show.
Ahead of the 2015 VMAs, MTV News got the inside scoop on that remarkable
set, by speaking with three masterminds behind the performance: Van
Toffler [President of MTV in 2000], Dave Sirulnick [Executive Producer
and head of MTV News at the time] and Eminem’s longtime manager, lawyer
and friend, Paul Rosenberg.
Here’s Why You Saw Hundreds Of Shady Clones
Van Toffler: Eminem made great videos that were
probably the most popular on “TRL” and MTV at the time. The challenge
for all of us was, how do we recreate that mayhem in a live performance?
How do we recreate the pageantry of an Eminem video?
Paul Rosenberg: The idea to have all those Slim Shadys
was sparked by “The Real Slim Shady” video. I think it was originally
Dr. Dre’s idea to create Eminems. The whole idea of the song was —
there’s a lot of people like me, but I’m the real deal. And also that
there’s a lot of carbon copies, but there’s a Slim Shady in all of us.
We wanted to recreate that for the show with MTV.
Dave Sirulnick: Another thing that was important
when we came up with the idea for the performance was the scope and size
that this could represent. Eminem’s personality was so big, so the idea
was that we weren’t going to be able to do this with five, 10 or even
20 Slim Shadys. This was 100 Slim Shadys strong.
Why The Beginning Of Em’s Performance Broke All The Rules
Sirulnick: In the 1990s, the VMAs had been at Radio
City Music Hall many times so we wanted to do things a little
differently. Heading into 2000, we had the idea to have a performance
that starts outside in the middle of the city and then enters the
building. Up to that point, that hadn’t been done before. We’d had
outdoor performances for the pre-show and there had been some remote
performances in other years, but the idea of bridging these two together
was something we thought would be a great idea. We said, “This is the
idea to use with Slim Shady.”
It’s so emblematic of who Eminem is. He’s literally starting
outside and metaphorically starting as an outsider. These clones would
come storming into the building led by Eminem, sweeping in the room to
take it over.
Eminem And Dr. Dre Were A Bit Alarmed By Those Shady Clones
Toffler: My recollection is that Em was a bit taken
aback by the idea and was completely flipped out when he saw a hundred
of these Eminems at the rehearsal, with the dyed blond hair just like
him. I think he was just really blown away by the imagery.
Rosenberg: I remember saying, “Oh, my God. This is
my worst nightmare,” but it was fun. All these kids were really excited
to be involved. While we were rehearsing, Marshall was trying to get
them to do things in unison, interacting with them and getting them to
chant. I’m sure that he signed stuff for them at one point too. One of
the things about Marshall is when he gets into a situation where he has
to sign stuff, he doesn’t want to leave anybody out.
Sirulnick: I remember we had all 100 Slim Shadys
arrive. We were starting to work with them and I remember distinctly
that we had almost all of them in the lobby of Radio City and then Dr.
Dre arrived. He knew what the performance was and he’d been a part of
all that, but it’s still something when you actually see these
guys. I remember walking with him and there’s all 100 of them and [Dre]
had the greatest reaction, jokingly saying, “Oh my God! It’s my worst
nightmare!” He loved it and he was having so much fun with it.
Everyone Was Really Worried About Pulling Off Such A Huge Stunt
Toffler: It was probably one of, if not the first
performance where we went exterior to interior. So there were tons of
concerns about audience flow, people being in their seats, about
security and about who could have been a crazy extra dressed up like
Eminem. I think there was a very high degree of difficulty, but no risk,
no reward.
Rosenberg: You’re always worried. There’s always a
concern that you’re gonna get some wild card [extra] but in this
instance, I don’t think we had a problem.
Sirulnick: Rehearsing this was also a challenge. The
way the VMAs are rehearsed, there are times when each group gets to
rehearse in the days leading up to the VMAs. With Eminem’s performance,
because we needed to rehearse the portion on 6th Avenue, in addition to
having to close the street down the night of the VMAs, for 20 minutes or
so, we also had to close it down during rehearsals.
Police Officers Were NOT Happy About The Rehearsals
Sirulnick: Like any rehearsal, you’ve got to try it a
few times. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. So we were rehearsing and
the way the guys were lining up and the way they were walking in, it
just wasn’t quite working. It was good, but it wasn’t great. I remember
with each pass, it was getting better, but we had a feeling that it
wasn’t quite there yet.
Then we got the word from the police: “This is it. New York City
needs their street back.” We all looked at each other like, “We’ve gotta
get this one as great as it can be this time,” because we weren’t going
to get a chance to rehearse the walk in until showtime again. So we had
to rehearse it and get it to a place where everybody was happy with it
and it came down to that last rehearsal.
After that rehearsal, we were like, “This has a chance to really
work,” but when you do these shows long enough, there are many times
when you do an awesome rehearsal and then you do the actual performance,
and something goes wrong. Conversely, there have been plenty of times
during my time with the VMAs where a performance will happen during
rehearsal and it’s okay, but then show night, something happens and it
just becomes magical. This was the rare time where the last rehearsal
was really good and when we got to the show night, it actually
got better. That is a testament completely to Eminem as one of the
greatest performers around. During the show, he owned every second of
that performance. He was as good as you will ever see a performer on
television.
There Was An Amazing Eminem Moment You Didn’t See On TV
Sirulnick: When you’re doing this as a live
television show and you’re one of the producers, one of your jobs is to
always look a little bit ahead. So, when [presenter] Jim Carrey was
doing the introduction to the Eminem performance, he was just being
really funny and he had the room cracking up. Meanwhile, we’re watching
on our monitors that Em is standing there waiting and you could see he
had that look like a boxer waiting for the bell to ring to charge out to
center ring. I remember thinking, “Man, he is going to kill it.”
Another really interesting thing happened. As soon as we cut outside
to Eminem and he made that determined step towards the camera and people
knew, “Oh my God, he’s going to come inside,” every single person
inside of Radio City Music Hall stood up. They were all watching on the
big screens inside. So, they saw the beginning of the performance but
when he made that move, they were so drawn in and compelled by his
performance and by wanting to just glimpse this…When he made those first
couple of steps, it was electric inside. Everybody stood up because
they were like, “Oh sh-t. He’s coming in.”
Did Eminem Plan That Carson Daly Handshake?
Rosenberg: I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a
coincidence. I think Marshall knew where they were sitting. When you’re
rehearsing for these shows, they put these little pictures of where
[celebrities] are sitting so you can get an idea of where people will
be. So I’m pretty sure they blocked it out to have Carson and Fred there
and they were friends.
Toffler: He knew who was sitting where, so he
probably had a sense, going down, where people were sitting, but in
terms of [the Carson Daly handshake], that was not planned. We didn’t
know what he was necessarily going to do. We just knew his path and we
knew who was probably going to be on camera. It’s always a guessing game
who’s staying in their seats, but there were a lot of people in that
audience who were targets of his lyrics and I think we wanted to get a
bunch of good reaction shots.
And Did He Leave Fred Durst Hanging On Purpose?
Rosenberg: I’m pretty sure that was accidental. I
don’t think they were at odds at that point. I don’t think he meant to
do that. When you’re in the heat of the performance and you have 100
kids walking by looking like you and you’re on live TV, you don’t really
have a chance to necessarily do everything you want to do. I’m pretty
sure that was an accident.
Why Eminem Closed With ’The Way I Am’ That Night
Toffler: He was probably the dominating king of
‘TRL’ at the time. So, it made sense to give him a longer slot for us.
Because there was so much movement in ‘The Real Slim Shady’ in getting
him from outside to inside, we had to find a way for him to do his thing
center stage and do what he does best — being that charismatic,
magnanimous performer who captivates the audience center stage.
Sirulnick: “The Real Slim Shady” is the Slim Shady
character so it has a different vibe and tone to it. When he got on that
stage and did “The Way I Am” – which is very much an Eminem/Marshall
Mathers song – he switched so quickly into this other character and he
was even more on fire doing “The Way I Am.” To me, it’s that combination
of what he was able to do from the mischievous Slim Shady character
leading 100 clones into Radio City Music Hall to take over everything
and then instantly turning into this guy who’s up there doing this
amazing vocal and lyrical performances of “The Way I Am.” It’s one of
the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
Rosenberg: That’s one of the things about Em, as an
artist, that I’ve really enjoyed working with, is that he’s always had
this sort of fun accessible stuff that he uses to lead you in and go on a
path you might not know you’re going on and then hit you with records
like ‘The Way I Am’ or ‘Stan’ or more extreme things like ‘Kim’ and
stuff you might not know you’re getting into. So, [the performance] goes
along with that theme of starting off where you might think it’s all
fun and games and then going into something serious
