Bad Husband
by Eminem (featuring X Ambassadors)

Album: Revival (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Marshall Mathers first met Kimberly Anne "Kim" Scott in high school. They began an on-and-off relationship in 1989 and their daughter Hailie Jade was born six years later. The pair got married twice before Eminem finally filed for divorce in early April 2016.

    Throughout his career, Em has torched Kim for their tumultuous relationship. In 2000, the Detroit MC penned a morbid track titled "Kim," in which he crudely kills her. That track was a prequel to the 1999 cut "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" where Slim Shady narrates how he dumps Kim's corpse in a lake.
  • During this song, a more mature and emotional Marshall Mathers accepts his share of the blame for the relationship's demise.

    We brought out the worst in each other
    Someone had to make the sparring end
    'Cause I loved you but I hated that me
    And I don't wanna see that side again


    The track is a heartfelt apology directed towards Kim by her former husband for spending so much of his career flaying her publicly. As a sign of his genuine remorse, Em sampled Hailie Jade's voice saying "Dad" on the hook. The clip comes from his 2002 track "My Dad's Gone Crazy."
  • X Ambassadors join Eminem and Hailee Jade on the hook. The Brooklyn-based four-piece previously teamed up with the Detroit MC on the song "Wicked Ways," which appears on the deluxe version of the rapper's 2013 album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
  • X Ambassadors frontman Sam Harris said about penning the hook in a Genius attribution:

    "It's very hard to write about family dynamics… it can be very vulnerable and uncomfortable. I've always had a great relationship with my father, but I think it's important to acknowledge that nobody's perfect. I'm about to get married myself, so it's been helpful for me to get a deeper understanding of why my parents' marriage ended - that's involved talking a lot with both my mother and my father about why they decided to separate. It's actually been extremely therapeutic and has brought me closer to both my parents.

    I've always been a fan of Em and how much he reveals of himself in his songs, so I felt like I had to rise to the occasion."

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