A Righteous Gemstone

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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, All of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

In 1999, rapper Eminem burst into the spotlight when he dropped his hugely successful album, The Slim Shady LP.

Over 20 songs and skits, Eminem used clever lyrics and tight rhythms to paint a picture of his alter ego, Slim Shady, a cartoonishly violent degenerate who loved to cause chaos.

While Slim Shady was a fictional character, Eminem used the persona to rap about real problems he had seen growing up in Detroit, from poverty to drug addiction.

But one song in particular crossed over into real life in a way that Eminem never expected.

The track, Brain Damage, followed Slim Shady in the ultimate revenge fantasy, beating up his middle school bully.

In the song, Eminem rapped about a kid named D'Angelo Bailey attacking him in a school bathroom and giving him, as the title suggested, brain damage.

However, the incident in the song, not entirely fictional.

Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, really was bullied as a kid in Detroit.

And yes, there really was a D'Angelo Bailey.

In 1982, Marshall's mother sued the school district for failing to protect her son.

She claimed that he had been beaten so badly by a boy named D'Angelo Bailey that he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was in and out of consciousness for five days.

At the time, the suit was thrown out, with the county ruling that schools were immune from lawsuits.

So young Eminem had to wait nearly 20 years to get his revenge on D'Angelo in the form of a song.

When brain damage first hit the airwaves, Rolling Stone magazine actually tracked down Eminem's old bully to ask him about it.

They found him still in Detroit, working as a janitor with the wife and kids.

In a 1999 interview, D'Angelo readily admitted to bullying the rapper.

He claimed that there was a whole group of kids that used to do so.

And he even remembered the incident that Eminem's mother sued the school over, bragging that yes, he and the others had knocked Eminem over at recess and told the teachers that he had slipped on ice.

Two years later though, after the slim shady LP had gone platinum, D'Angelo Bailey changed his tune.

He sued Eminem for defamation, claiming the lyrics had harmed his reputation and made him a laughingstock.

He argued that the song had hurt his own attempt at a rap career.

and that Eminem was only targeting him to gain credibility for being tough among the hip-hop community.

D'Angelo asked the court for a million dollars in damages, arguing that Eminem had made him sound like a sadistic psychopath, which, to be fair, was how he was portrayed in the song.

In 2003, the case made it to a county circuit court in Michigan.

Lawyers for Eminem and D'Angelo Bailey laid out their cases, and after hearing the evidence, Judge Deborah Servito gave her ruling.

Now, It wasn't what was in the ruling that was remarkable.

Judge Servito ruled that the lyrics were clearly an exaggeration.

The rap was protected under the constitutional right to free speech, and Eminem had the right to express himself, even if he used real names and childhood events to do so.

Not only that, but D'Angelo Bailey had admitted in interviews that he did bully Eminem, although he claimed that it was just horseplay.

The court wasn't convinced that the damage to his reputation was worth a million-dollar payout.

All of this, of course, was pretty standard for a court ruling.

What wasn't standard, though, was how it was delivered.

You see, in recognition of the defendant, Eminem, she wrote a portion of her ruling as a wrap.

It's a curious end to a curious story.

And I think it's fair to say, not only did Judge Servito drop a case, she also dropped the mic.

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Nothing quite ignites the imagination like the promise of buried treasure.

It has formed the basis for pirate legends, adventure stories, and a series of real-life treasure hunters who go to the ends of the earth to find rare objects that they can display back home.

One of the most popular tourist destinations in England is the Tower of London, where you can see the crown jewels on display, each gem possessing a rich backstory of its own.

However, as pretty as these gems are, treasure hunting stories often come with a warning.

As beautiful as they are to look at, precious stones may bring more trouble than they're worth.

In the process of retrieving them, you'll invite the greed of other treasure hunters or even bring a curse upon yourself.

Take, for example, the Delhi Purple Sapphire.

It's an undeniably striking gem set in a silver frame.

Never mind that it's actually an amethyst, so its title is a bit of a misnomer.

It has a second, probably more accurate name though, the gem of sorrow.

According to the legend, it was once kept in a temple of Indra in Kanpur, India.

For those who don't know, Indra is the Hindu god who represents the weather, so things like lightning and storms, but also war.

So in general, not the sort of god you want to steal from.

And this is exactly what happened.

In 1857, the continent of India was thrown into chaos when locals rebelled against the rule of the British East India Company.

And during that upheaval, a British cavalryman entered the Temple of Indra and took the beautiful purple stone for himself.

His name was Colonel W.

Ferris, and he traveled back to England with the purple gem as a keepsake of his time on the continent.

Not long after, his fortunes took a turn for the worse.

His family members started falling very badly ill, his finances soured, and at first he thought that it was just bad luck on his part, but then he loaned the stone to a friend.

That stone eventually came back after his friend had taken his own life.

At this point, Ferris was convinced the stone itself was cursed.

He must get rid of it as soon as possible.

What happened after that has been lost to time, but by 1890 the stone had made its way into the hands of a scientist and polymath named Edward Heron Allen.

And it was Allen who began the tales of this gem's legend.

He's the one who called it the Delhi Sapphire and the one who said that it brought nothing but misfortune.

Just like Ferris before him, he found that this curse always shifted to the person who possessed the gem.

He'd once given it to a friend who was a professional singer, and she subsequently lost her voice permanently and gave the amethyst back.

The dire game of hot potato would only continue from there.

Growing desperate, Heron Allen threw the stone into a canal.

Three months later, it was given back to him because someone had dredged it up by accident and it made its way from hand to hand until it was returned.

Just like a bad penny, it kept turning up.

A gem with the ability to ruin your life.

Reasoning that there was no proper way to dispose of it, Heron Allen sealed the gem in a locked box and put that box in a bank vault.

And then he gave instructions to his family to never open that box until after he was dead.

Edward Heron Allen passed away in the 1940s, after which his daughter opened the safe to find the amethyst still there, waiting for a new owner to torment.

Remembering her father's stories about this gem, she immediately donated it to London's Natural History Museum.

Now, allegedly, as they transported the stone from the vault to the museum, the truck carrying the gem was beset by a powerful storm, as if Indra himself had come to remind them who the rightful owner was.

Eventually, though, it arrived, and the cursed amethyst has been on display in the Natural History Museum ever since.

So, the next time you're at a museum and you see a beautiful gem from a far-off land, Remember, there is no knowing what spirits it brought along for the ride.

Everything in the museum has a story of its own, some benign, and some, like this stone, littered with tragedy.

Cursed or not, stealing always does have a price.

As Shakespeare once said, all that glitters is not gold.

Gilded tombs do worms infold.

I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting CuriositiesPodcast.com.

The show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with How Stuff Works.

I make another award-winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show.

And you can learn all about it over at theworldoflore.com.

And until next time, stay curious.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

American Public University is the number one provider of education to our military and veterans in the country.

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If you have a military or veteran family member and are looking for affordable, high-quality education, APU is the place for you.

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