## Facts

- DeAngelo Bailey (plaintiff) and Marshall Bruce Mathers, III, a/k/a Eminem Slim Shady (defendant), attended the same grade school during the same time period.
- Mathers released the song “Brain Damage,” which referenced “DeAngelo Bailey” by name and described Bailey as a school bully who beat Mathers, including an alleged beating in a school bathroom.
- A Rolling Stone Magazine article about Mathers and his music discussed the song and included statements attributed to Bailey concerning the events described in “Brain Damage.”
- Bailey alleged that the song’s depiction and the statements in the magazine were untrue, portrayed him as a violent person, and exposed him to public contempt and ridicule.
- Bailey sued asserting privacy-based and reputational tort theories (including false light invasion of privacy and related claims tied to the publication of the lyrics and article).
- Mathers sought summary disposition/summary judgment, arguing that the challenged content was not actionable because it was, in context, exaggerated artistic expression and, in any event, not materially false under the substantial-truth doctrine.
- The trial court granted summary disposition for Mathers, and Bailey appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the lyrics in “Brain Damage” and the statements in the Rolling Stone article were actionable as false statements placing Bailey before the public in a false light, or instead were nonactionable parody/rhetorical hyperbole in context.
2. Whether Bailey produced evidence of a materially false portrayal, or whether the substantial-truth doctrine defeated liability because the gist of the portrayal (Bailey as a bully toward Mathers) was not shown to be materially false.
3. Whether Bailey’s related emotional-distress theory could proceed when the challenged conduct consisted of speech that the court treated as protected expressive content.

## Decision

- The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition in Mathers’s favor.
- The court treated the song as a stylized, exaggerated account of adolescent experiences that an ordinary listener would not take as a literal, verifiable report of historical fact.
- Because the challenged content was presented in a context that signaled parody and exaggeration, Bailey could not satisfy the falsity requirement necessary for liability on his privacy/reputation-based claims.
- The court also concluded that Bailey could not avoid summary disposition by reframing the same protected expressive content as a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

## Legal Principles

- Liability for false light/defamation-type claims requires, at minimum, an actionable false statement (or portrayal) of fact; imaginative expression, parody, and rhetorical hyperbole are generally not treated as provably true-or-false factual assertions.
- Context matters: genre, tone, and the form of the publication inform how a reasonable audience would understand the statements.
- Under the substantial-truth doctrine, a plaintiff cannot establish actionable falsity if the alleged inaccuracies do not materially change the gist or sting of the portrayal.
- A plaintiff cannot use an emotional-distress claim to impose liability for speech that is constitutionally protected and nonactionable under defamation/false-light standards.
- Summary disposition is proper where, taking the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, no reasonable factfinder could find a materially false factual assertion required for the claim.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal of Bailey’s suit because “Brain Damage” and the related Rolling Stone discussion were presented as exaggerated, humorous storytelling rather than a literal factual account, and Bailey did not show a materially false portrayal sufficient to support false light or related tort liability; for the same reason, his emotional-distress theory could not proceed based on protected expressive speech.


DeAngelo Bailey v. Marshall Bruce Mathers, III a/k/a Eminem Slim Shady, 2003 WL 22410088, 31 Media L. Rep. 2575 (2003)