A bully was thwarted on Friday, when a Michigan appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by an ex-schoolmate of Eminem's who accused the Grammy winner of falsely depicting him in a song.
In "Brain Damage," released on Eminem's 1999 The Slim Shady LP, the Detroit-area rapper (real name: Marshall Bruce Mathers III), 32, says that in their younger days Deangelo Bailey beat him up in a school bathroom, banged his head on a urinal and choked him.
A three-judge panel unanimously upheld a Macomb County judge's 2003 decision, writing: "It is apparent that a reasonable listener would not take the song lyrics about the defendant literally."
Bailey, a sanitation worker, sued in 2001 and accused the rapper of invading his privacy by publicizing unreasonable information that put him in a false light. Bailey admitted that he picked on Mathers but said he merely "bumped" him at school and threw a "little shove."
Bailey's attorney, Byron Nolen, tells the Associated Press that the ruling does not surprise him. He added that there will be no appeal.
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