Global rap sensation Marshall "Eminem" Mathers premiered the new music video for his single "Somebody Save Me," on YouTube today, the final track of his recently-released album "The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)."
The cut explores the rapper's strained relationships while dealing with drug addiction, a heart-wrenching exploration of an alternate reality in which he died before his daughter Alaina's graduation.
"Alaina, I'll be there in a minute, I promise," he raps in the somber track, which deals with heavy themes ranging from addiction to depression.
Then at the end of the music video comes a strange twist: an affiliate link promising a free month of therapy at BetterHelp, a mental health and online counseling services platform that has been embroiled in controversy for years now, as Polygon documented in detail back in 2018.
It's a troubling inclusion, especially considering the sheer scale of Eminem's following.
Unsurprisingly, many fans were left unimpressed by the inclusion.
"I wish Em did more research on BetterHelp before advertising it, really not a good service," one user wrote in a post on Reddit.
"BetterHelp is terrible, sad to see that he's advertising it," another user wrote.
BetterHelp's track record has been called into question for years.
Most notably last year, the Federal Trade Commission found that BetterHelp "broke its privacy promises," handing over "sensitive health information through unavoidable prompts."
That's despite promising its users that they can "rest assured" that "any information provided in this questionnaire will stay private between you and your counselor."
Eminem is hardly the only celebrity to promote the service. BetterHelp affiliate links are ubiquitous among YouTubers, and earlier this year, even NFL legend Tom Brady partnered with the site to shill discounted therapy sessions.
That's caught many of those public figures heat, though. According to the FTC, BetterHelp broke its confidentiality promises by selling health information of over seven million consumers to the likes of Facebook, Snapchat, and Pinterest for advertising purposes.
In May, the embattled company agreed to pay $7.8 million to settle the regulator's allegations, but has maintained that the move wasn't an admission of wrongdoing. (Neither BetterHelp nor Eminem responded to a request for comment.)
The company offers relatively affordable online counseling sessions, often undercutting mainstream prices. Whether clients are getting quality mental health care, though, remains debatable.
"We have a huge demand for mental health services that needs to be met and the space is there for mental health offerings," University of Sydney psychologist Andrew Campbell told The Guardian earlier this year. "The other side of the coin is about the quality and the safety of the service... and that’s my concern about BetterHelp."
"Because it has a reputation of doing, I would say, quantity over quality," he added.
In instances of a mental health crisis like those Eminem poignantly discusses in "Somebody Save Me," that could prove to be a disaster.
"I felt they were treated like Uber drivers," BetterHelp’s first clinical director Sonya Bruner, who now runs her own small therapy website, told the Wall Street Journal in 2022. "There are a lot of good counselors on there, but you also find counselors who aren’t, who do the minimum. They don’t get paid a lot, so they’ll phone it in."
Despite recently settling with the FTC over its less-than-stellar client privacy practices, BetterHelp is now looking to expand into Australia, raising alarm bells among critics.
"Australian consumers deserve to know what BetterHelp has been doing with their data here and we’re urging the privacy commissioner to investigate any potential misuses," consumer advocacy group Choice's Kate Bower told The Guardian.
In short, Eminem is setting a dangerous precedent by using his enormous reach and influence, often to a troubled fan base, to advertise a controversial service.
Some fans, however, are giving him a break.
"Em is my therapist," one Reddit user wrote.
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