Trivia
- “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” was released as the album’s second single, peaking at No. 4 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.
- In 2015, stated that the song’s instrumental was originally intended for ’s debut studio album, Devil’s Night, supporting Eminem’s recollection that he had made the beat for .
- In 2013, Eminem apologised to his mother for “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” in the song “Headlights” from The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
- In 2024, Eminem confirmed via Genius that the line “I have no snare in my headphones” was genuine and not done for effect, stating, “This was true. I was recording and couldn’t hear the snare; the engineer had it muted for some reason. I left it.”
- The song’s single featured the exclusive B-side track “Stimulate,” an outtake from The Eminem Show. The track was later included on the Shady/Aftermath Sampler CD, included with the limited edition of the 8 Mile soundtrack later that year, and on The Eminem Show (Expanded Edition) in 2022.
Words from Eminem and DJ Green Lantern
“It’s a harsh record but I feel like my mother has done some harsh things to me. You just try your whole life to be able to get away from that person and make a life for yourself and not have to deal with it anymore. And it’s so hard to break away. And they keep coming back to haunt you, trying to weasel their way into your life somehow. That’s my closure song, I guess. It’s like I’m washing my hands of it. I’m cleaning out my closet. I’m done.
“The first day I met Em, I feel like I might have dissed him on the low without realising it. They brought me to the studio in L.A., one of Dre’s studios; they were mixing The Eminem Show, so I heard a few things in that session. […] I hear “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” and I’m like, okay, instrumentationwise it sounded slightly similar to me — “Renegade.” I’m in my producer head, “Side stick snare, upright bass.” So when we finally meet, which is later on that night, he’s like, “Did you get to hear some of the album?” I was like, “Yeah, I really like that one that sounds like ‘Renegade.’” And he looked at me, almost like a scowl, like, “Why are you saying this sounds like this other thing?” Then I was like, “It’s great though, it’s great!”
“I’m paranoid as fuck about anything of mine sounding like a track I just did, or like anything else out there.
“That beat was actually a beat I was making for Bizarre. […] I don’t remember what happened, but I ended up taking the beat. ’Cause sometimes if someone’s there as I’m making it, and they start wanting to write to it, I usually give it to ’em.