OAK PARK, Mich — A 16-year-old boy dragged Eminem's mother from her car on the suburban-Detroit street made infamous by the rapper's movie 8-Mile, police said.

The teenager was arrested shortly after the carjacking Thursday night as he tried to flee from police on foot in the northern Detroit suburb Oak Park and the car was recovered.

Police said Debbie Nelson, 49, was sitting in her Honda Accord at a gas station on Eight Mile Road at about 11:30 p.m. EST when a person approached her window with a silver handgun and demanded she get out.

Nelson told Detroit's WXYZ-TV the attacker grabbed her by the hair and arm.

"For this to be a kid - it broke my heart," she said.

Nelson said she tried to contact her son, whose real name is Marshall Mathers but "he apparently must not be in town."

Nelson's rocky relationship with her son has been no secret since the Detroit rapper became a star. Eminem has disparaged his mother in songs such as Cleaning Out My Closet. Nelson brought and settled two defamation lawsuits over Eminem's statements about her in magazines and on radio talk shows.

Police arrested James Antonio Knott of Detroit about two kilometres from the gas station after he became stuck in traffic and attempted to flee.

The teenager was charged as an adult with carjacking and armed robbery Friday and is being held in lieu of $150,000 cash bail, said police, who did not believe the carjacker recognized Nelson.