SLIM SHADIES?: T.I. BECAME FRIENDS WITH EMINEM AFTER LEGAL TROUBLES!

UPDATE: "Paper Trail" is coming out August 12th. Rapper T.I. has formed a strong bond with EMINEM in recent months, after the hip-hop mogul reached out to the BRING 'EM OUT star to offer his support during his legal woes. T.I. was handed a 1,000-hour community service sentence in March, after pleading guilty to weapons charges relating to his October 2007 arrest, when he allegedly tried to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers. And, while spending several months on house arrest at his Atlanta, Georgia home, T.I. reveals a number of his hip-hop peers got in touch to help him through his troubled times.

But no one was more supportive than Slim Shady star Eminem. Speaking on Atlanta radio station Hot 107.9, T.I. says, "I wasn't expecting to hear from nobody. I made a point not to reach out to people... because I didn't want to get none of my trash in nobody else's yard... "(Young) Jeezy actually came to one of my hearings. ...I spoke to (Lil) Wayne a couple times, spoke to Puff (Sean 'Diddy' Combs), Jay(-Z) a few times. I probably spoke to Busta (Rhymes) the most. "The only person I spoke to more than Busta was Eminem. Me and Eminem stayed in contact, stayed on the phone. Just checking in on each other, making sure one another was doing good. Of course I spoke to Nelly, a lot." Now Clifford, Nelly hasn't had a brush with the law during his career. Above is one of Sandra's photos of Tip last week at Maya Angelou's 80th birthday and one when he was just a boy.