Songfacts®:

• Eminem gives us an unflinching insider look at pill addiction in "Beautiful Pain," where he describes the experience:
  
  It's as though you feel you've died
  'Cause you've been killed inside
  But yet you're still alive which means you will survive
  
  He got hooked on Valium in the mid-'00s, and it nearly killed him. He was in seclusion for much of this time, emerging in 2009 with his album Relapse, followed in 2010 with Recovery. Both albums deal with his addiction and the many other weights he carries. "Beautiful Pain" was released as a single in 2013 and included on the deluxe edition of his next album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
• The Australian singer-songwriter Sia Furler sings the hook on this track. At the time, she was known for her 2004 song "Breathe Me" and for singing hooks on tracks by David Guetta ("Titanium") and Flo Rida ("Wild Ones"). In 2014, the year after "Beautiful Pain" was released, Sia blew up with her album 1000 Forms Of Fear and the hit "Chandelier."
• This song is one of many where Emimen joins forces with a female singer to supply the chorus. Others include "Stan" (Dido), "The Monster" (Rihanna) and "Won't Back Down" (Pink).
• Sia, who is openly bisexual, took some heat for working with Eminem, who throws around the word "fa--ot" a lot in his lyrics, including on the The Marshall Mathers LP 2 track "Rap God." Sia defended Eminem, telling The Huffington Post that she was "under the impression that Eminem's alter-ego Slim Shady was performance art, and a thing of the past," adding that she does not believe the rapper is homophobic in real life.
  
  Sia eventually donated her share of profits from the song to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center.
• "Beautiful Pain" was produced by Emile Haynie, who also worked on Eminem's 2010 hit "Going Through Changes." His other credits include "Locked Out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars and "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Rey.
  
  Emile is also listed as a songwriter on the track along with Eminem, Sia, and Em's longtime collaborator Luis Resto.