FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Fort Wayne’s NBC) – You may have heard that the biological father of rapper Eminem died this week. What you may not know is that Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. lived in Fort Wayne.

Social media has been filled with comments, some of you saying you met Emenim’s father but didn’t know if he was telling the truth about who he was. Others, saying they couldn’t believe he lived here.

“I thought how in the world have I been living here for 32 years and not know that he was even existing in this area,” said George Goodson who lives in the neighborhood where Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. lived.

“That’s crazy, to have a famous person live next to you that you didn’t know,” said Julissa Campos who lives in the neighborhood.

Rather than go by Marshall Mathers he choose to go by Bruce. Several of Eminem’s songs have explicit lyrics about the disdain he feels for his father, based on the rapper’s accusations that his father abandoned his family. It’s a claim Mathers, Jr. denied in the past.

One woman who says she was close to Eminem’s father told Fort Wayne’s NBC he was a nice, humble person. “To have the same name and to be the same age and of course google, pretty much tells you it all,” said Heather Burton a close friend of Mathers, Jr.

“He would talk about him, but not a lot. He had a lot of regret and a lot of sadness, but I don’t know the other side of the story,” said Burton.

Burton also says Mathers wished he could have seen his son before he died, and said he was sick for a long time.