Yet at the weekend he remarried her.

The rap star and his high-school sweetheart rekindled one of hip-hop’s most celebrated romances on Saturday, five years after their marriage collapsed and the couple fought a bitter custody battle over their daughter, Hailie, now 9. Rapper 50 Cent was among about 85 guests as the bride and groom exchanged rings at a popular wedding venue in their home town of Detroit, as news helicopters hovered overhead. Rapper Proof acted as best man.

Guests told reporters that Eminem walked up the aisle in a black suit to the sound of the piano line from his song Mockingbird, performed by Luis Resto, who co-wrote some of the rapper’s biggest hits. Kim wore a white gown.

Eminem, 33, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, met Kimberly Ann Scott, 31, at school 17 years ago. The couple had a baby together in 1995 and married four years later. But in June 2000 Eminem pulled a gun on a barman he saw kissing his wife at Detroit’s Hot Rocks Café. He was sentenced to two years’ probation.

The next month Kim attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. Eminem filed for divorce. He rapped about killing Kim and disposing of her body in ’97 Bonnie and Clyde, a track on his breakthrough The Slim Shady LP in 1999. In Kim, on The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000, he fantasised again in explicit terms about killing her.

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