Eminem is getting candid about his life in the spotlight - and his complicated relationship with his fans - in his new documentary, Stans. The film, featuring candid interviews with Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers), Dr. Dre, LL Cool J and a handpicked few of the rapper's biggest fans, sets out to explore his complicated relationship with his legion of listeners over the years while reflecting on his meteoric rise to the spotlight. "None of it's normal. None of this is normal," the rapper, 52, told cameras at the start of the film, which released in theaters Thursday, August 7. "Once the 'Hi, My Name Is' video, once MTV accepted that and played it, it was like a f***ing switch flipped overnight." According to director Steven Leckart, the idea of a film exploring the effects of "stan" culture, specifically in Enimen's life, came about years ago with producer Paul Rosenberg. Eminem's 2000 single "Stan," featuring Dido, details an obsessed fan whose hero-worship drives him to his early death. The track became the origin story for the term "stans," a phrase that still exists in the pop culture zeitgeist today to explain a next-level infatuation with celebrities. Calling All 'Stans': Eminem Wants You for His Superfan Documentary "I grew up on hip hop in the '80s and '90s, and became a fan of Eminem's music in '99 and watched his rise on MTV," Leckart exclusively told Us Weekly. "So when the opportunity came to me to have the conversation with him and his team to try to come up with a documentary based on one of the most iconic songs ever written, I was like, 'Yeah, of course, that sounds wonderful.' So then it was just a question of coming up with the right approach." From there, Leckart and Rosenberg sent out a link on Eminem's social media to a questionnaire to find the right fans to interview about their love of the rapper's music. While over 9,000 submissions came in over just a few months, not everyone was right for the project. "The reason why 'Stan' exists and is such an iconic song is that there's a sense that it could be real, right? And, of course, there's people out there that are obsessed," Leckart explained. "I mean, there were people that claimed to be related to [Eminem] for sure. Everything under the sun. When you have 45 million followers on Instagram, and you're one of the most famous people in the world, you're going to attract a lot of variety. After a while, nothing surprised me." As for his interviews with Eminem, Leckart claimed that nothing was off limits. While the "Lose Yourself" singer opened up about everything from fame to addiction, it was a story about Eminem and his daughter Hailie Jade, now 29, getting mobbed in a mall that left a lasting impression. "It's in the songs, right? Like, 'I can't let her play in the front yard,' and all that stuff was there in the music. But to hear him tell a full story, end to end, and to sit across from him during the interview, to just experience his sort of reliving of it, I was really moved by that," he said. "Because when I became a fan of his in '99 I knew he was a dad and had a kid, but I was, like, a teenager, and I didn't think about it. Now, I'm an adult and have kids of my own, so as a father with a daughter, I was like, 'Oh, I can really empathize with how that must have felt.' And it made me, frankly, fortunate that I'm not a famous person." Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Stans: Eminem's Addiction Struggles The hip-hop legend got candid about his addiction to prescription pills, primarily Vicodin, Valium, Ambien and Xanax, from roughly 1999 to 2008. "I got into this vicious cycle of, 'I'm depressed so I need more pills,' and then your tolerance gets so high that you end up overdosing," he said. "I woke up in the hospital and I didn't know what happened. I woke up in the hospital with tubes in me and s*** and I couldn't get up, I wanted to move. After the overdose, I came home like I needed something ... like, I'm gonna die if I don't do anything." He recalled being shown a video of daughter Hailie's birthday, which he had missed due to his addiction. "I cried because it was like, 'Oh my god, I missed that.' I kept saying to myself, 'Do you want to f***ing miss this again? Do you want to miss everything? If you can't do it for yourself, you f***ing pussy, at least do it for them.' I realized I'm never doing this again." Eminem has now been sober for nearly 17 years, but he still had to "relearn how to walk, talk and for the most part had to relearn how to rap again." He told the camera, "My writing had gotten terrible. When I started to get it back, it was exciting. Because I felt it. It would be conversations, just having conversations with people or the TV. ... It was hitting me really fast and I was writing songs really quickly." Relapse, Eminem's sixth album that addressed - and poked fun at - his addiction struggle, released in 2009 to "lukewarm" response. "But it did something. It turned the light on. Like, 'You gott