Hollywood Popular Artists

Oct 17th 2013, 20:25, by Alexandra Govere

It's #ThrowbackThursday, and chances are your Instagram feed is full of awkward, adorable or awkwardly adorable pics of your friends and followers from back in the day. If your fave thing about Thursdays is celebrity throwbacks, we've got 'em for ya! Today: Eminem.

Can you believe that Eminem turns 41 today?! Yep. It's been 17 years since the rapper dropped his first album, and 14 years since he took the world by storm with his bleach blonde hair and hit single "My Name Is." (Chicka chicka, Slim Shady!)

+ 1999: Watch Eminem's "My Name Is" music video.

SO glad that bleached hair phase is over, although, in the moment, we all thought it was cool. Eminem's released 11 albums and sold millions of songs since he hit the rap scene. He's also given countless epic performances, from "The Real Slim Shady" at the 2000 VMAs, in which he came out with hundreds of Eminem-lookalikes, to his "Stan" duet with Elton John at the '01 Grammys, which made him one of the first major rappers to give public love to the LGBTQ community. However, one of Em's greatest accomplishments came this year, when he opened up about years of drug addiction and how he's overcoming it.

+ 2013: Watch Eminem get candid about his drug addiction.

"Kids, don't do drugs," Em' says in the above clip. "It's hard for me to try to figure out when it went from recreation to a full blown problem," In 2011, 23.8% of 18-20 year olds reported using drugs in the past month! Drugs may seem fun and harmless, but as Slim Shady says, it's too easy to slip into addiction. In fact, 1 in 10 drug users become addicts.

We're celebrating Eminem today, not just because it's his birthday, but because he overcame and opened up about substance abuse -- hopefully, motivating some of his fans to do the same. Follow the action widgets below if you or a loved one needs help.

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