Original Stan Actor Sends Eminem Message On Rapper's 47th Birthday

Yesterday, Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers III) turned 47 - and one of his many birthday wishes stood out from the rest.

Devon Sawa took to Twitter to pay tribute to the rapper, writing: "Happy birthday @Eminen. Sincerely yours, Stan.

"Ps. We should be together, too."

If you couldn't guess from that, Sawa is of course the actor who played Stan in the music video for Eminem's hit single of the same name, which was released some 19 years ago.

Also, 'Ps. We could be together too' is a lyrical reference, in case that wasn't clear.

In the almost two decades since the track was released, it has come to be considered one of the hip-hop artist's finest offerings. So much so, the term 'Stan' was actually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017 and refers to 'an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity'.

But while Sawa may be the original Stan, there was a period last year when people started to wonder whether Machine Gun Kelly was actually the inspiration behind Stan.

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Kelly was embroiled with a beef with Slim Shady at the time, which culminated in the pair releasing diss tracks about each other. However, in more peaceful times beforehand, MGK - or Richard Colson Baker, as his mum calls him - used to heap praise on Eminem, which led people to draw parallels between him and Stan.

If you need a recap, the original Stan wrote endless fan mail to Eminem before killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend when the rapper didn't reply.

In one tweet from 2012, MGK said: "And last but not least, here's my daily, 'I wanna meet Eminem!!!!' tweet. Greatest ever."

As if the similarities weren't convincing enough, MGK himself even tweeted in 2013 saying: "I'm an Eminem Stan for sure."

Un-bl***y-canny.

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Perhaps if Eminem had replied to his tweets their whole beef would never have unfolded.

As it turned out though, the now 47-year-old ended up writing the following lyrics about MGK: "How you gonna name yourself after a damn gun, and have a man bun" and "Your reply got the crowd yellin' 'Oo' so before you die let's see who can out-petty who with your corny lines. I'm 45 and I'm still out-selling you."

So he definitely got recognition from his hero - though perhaps not the kind of recognition he used to dream of.

Topics: Viral, Celebrity, Music, US Entertainment, Eminem

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey