Sherri Papini’s story was already unbelievable, then Eminem rhymed her name with Houdini. A new docuseries director says she knows about the line and she is not mad.
The California woman became known to everyone in 2016 after she claimed she had been kidnapped and held for 22 days by two mysterious women. The truth unravelled fast: Papini had actually hidden out with an ex-boyfriend and staged the entire ordeal, going as far as asking him to brand her and beat her up. It was a national scandal, and it landed her in federal prison.
Now, she’s telling her side of the story in a new docuseries on ID, and yes, Eminem’s “Houdini” bar came up in conversation with filmmaker Nicole Rittenmeyer.
The lyric goes:
What you thought you saw ain’t what you saw
’Cause you’re never gon’ see me
Caught sleepin’ and see the kidnappin’ never did happen
Like Sherri Papini, Harry Houdini
I vanish into the thin air as I’m leaving like…
It is a quick reference, but it did not go unnoticed.
“I did ask her about it”, Rittenmeyer told The Hollywood Reporter. “We wanted to put it in the show. But licensing Eminem [is expensive]”. Still, Papini’s reaction was surprisingly chill. “She had a friend of hers explain it to her, like, ‘You have reached peak pop culture’. I don’t think she’s displeased about it, I’ll put it that way”, continues the filmmaker.
Rittenmeyer even suggests the line is more flattering than most things said about Papini in the media. “If you are Sherri Papini and you follow at all what has been said about you, [the ‘Houdini’ line] is by far the least offensive, egregious, insulting thing. I mean, it’s almost positive”.
Eminem’s line did not make the final cut of the docuseries, but it is clearly something Papini is aware of and maybe even lowkey proud of. After all, not everyone gets immortalised by Slim Shady.
