“You know, these things cost bread, so Em put the cheese up for it,” said Kurupt in a new interview on SiriusXM’s ‘Sway in the Morning’
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NEED TO KNOW
- Kurupt revealed in a new interview that Eminem paid for his rehab after alcohol addiction led to seizures and a three-week coma
- Dr. Dre offered emotional support while Eminem covered costs and arranged a private treatment facility for Kurupt
- Eminem has been open about his own addiction struggles, including a near-fatal overdose and achieving sobriety
Eminem helped a fellow rapper through a struggle with addiction.
In a new interview on SiriusXM’s Sway in the Morning, rapper Kurupt opened up about going to rehab for an alcohol addiction that led him to experience multiple seizures and a three-week coma. He also revealed that Eminem paid for his treatment.
“It was Dr. Dre that called and was just giving his support and just let me know that, you know, we all go through these things. He was just giving me that game,” said Kurupt, 53, whose real name is Ricardo Emmanuel Brown.
He recalled, “And it was Em who came to the table like, ‘I’m gonna put Kurupt with my folks, and I’m going to put some money into getting him into like, a rehab situation to where he can sit down and enjoy [himself] and be out the way. Nobody will know he’s there.’”
“You know, these things cost bread, so Em put the cheese up for it and said, ‘Tell Kurupt I love him,’” added the Kuruption! artist. “Dr. Dre relayed the message, and then he put me with Em’s folks.”
Kurupt continued, “So, you know, that was real special to me. I appreciate both of them so much. And it’s like, damn, you know? He just came out the blue from nowhere. Like, ‘Okay, Kurupt going through that? Bam. Boom. I’ma do that for him, man. Tell Kurupt get well, we love him.’ That’s deep.’”
The two rappers go way back, as Eminem shouted out Kurupt as one of the best emcees of all time in the lyrics of his 2002 hit “Till I Collapse.”
In the past, Eminem’s been open about his own struggles with substance use. He experienced a near-fatal overdose in 2007 and spoke about his sobriety in his 2025 documentary STANS.
“After the overdose, I came home going, ‘Yo, bro, I need something… I’m going to die if I don’t do something,’” said the “Lose Yourself” artist, who then went into recovery and made his 2009 album Relapse in the process.
Credit: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty
“The response I got from Relapse was lukewarm, but that also turned the lights on and I thought, ‘You’ve gotta do something different,’” Eminem (whose real name is Marshall Mathers III) said in the documentary. “Why don’t you try embracing sobriety?”
He continued, “I realized I’m not embarrassed anymore about it, and I started treating sobriety like a superpower. I was proud of the fact that I could quit.”
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