You’ve heard her graphically murdered in one song, heard her corpse being dumped in another, and perhaps even saw her blowup-doll likeness strangled on stage during the Marshall Mathers LP tour. Last Friday, Kim Mathers offered her side of the story, telling 20/20 what it’s like to be the double-ex-wife of a man who became world-famous for murdering her in effigy.

Featured as part of the 20/20 special When Love Turns to Hate, Kim was presented as “one person who says she experienced the devastating impact of a lover’s revenge”:

Mathers said she felt the most powerless in the summer of 2000, when Eminem called her a tramp in his song “Kim.” The graphic and violent lyrics, which Eminem says were never intended to be taken literally, depict him pretending to kill her. “I was humiliated…” said Mathers. “This is supposed to be a man that loves me, and is supposed to protect me …”

Soon after the song’s release, she says Eminem promised her he wouldn’t perform it at a hometown concert. “And sure enough, he decided to do that song, and not only perform the song, but use blow-up dolls to re-enact … me being choked…Just watching everybody else singing the words and laughing, jumping around … I couldn’t take it. I made it home, and I went upstairs in my bathroom and I slit my wrists and ended up in the hospital.”

For the record, both of Eminem’s wife-murdering songs are brilliant—”Just the Two of Us,” hilariously so; “Kim,” horrifyingly so—and both earn their space on earth as works of art. But I’ve always wondered what it’s like for Kim, as the most famous faux-murdered wife in history. Knowing that “Kim” literally drove her to try suicide breaks my heart, and it’s one more thing Eminem is going to have a hell of a time explaining to the daughter he’s allegedly devoted his life to protecting.

Who knows, maybe someday Kim will record a song that’ll drive Eminem to try suicide. (A cover of Ice-T’s “The Bitch Tried to Kill Me” should do it.)