Stan (song) - Censorship

Censorship

The MTV "clean" version of the song and video are extensively and exhaustively censored, with significant portions from the first two verses and most of the third verse removed. In the MTV full version, which is 8:15 long, verse 3 censors Stan mentioning his girlfriend in the trunk (so "Shut up bitch" and "screaming in the trunk" is censored), and about him not slitting her throat, but tied her up, and "If she suffocates, she'll suffer more, then she'll die too", which "slit", "tied her up", "suffocates" and "die" is censored.

Dido has stated that she was gagged in the third verse of the video, but this was censored so widely that versions with her gagged are rare. In the uncensored version, Stan is shown drinking at the wheel of the car before showing Dido struggling in the boot of the car. She manages to remove the duct tape from her mouth and screams before struggling for breath. Most versions were censored so that there is only a brief clip of Dido in the boot of the car towards the end of the verse. It also censors when Stan says he "drank a fifth of vodka", which censors "drank" and "vodka", and censors when he says he's on "a thousand downers", which "downers" is censored, and also censors from showing Stan drinking while driving. Also, at the end of the third verse, "Well, gotta go, I'm almost at the bridge now" is changed to "Well, gotta go, I'm almost at the end of the bridge now". While in the fourth verse, the line " shit about us meant to be together" is completely censored. All references to the girlfriend in the trunk are censored out, including the line "And had his girlfriend in his trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid."

In the MTV short version, which was utilized for radio airplay due to time constraints, the second verse lines that are missing are from "I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein' lied to" to "I even got a tattoo of your name across the chest", which the video cuts showing Stan meeting Eminem, talking about how his father cheated and beat his mother and showed him getting a "Slim Shady" tattoo on his chest. The third verse lines that are missing is about Stan saying about drinking while driving and saying about "In the Air Tonight", which in the video, it skips from showing Stan near-missing a car, and swerving to avoid crashing into it. The lines that are missing are from "Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare to me to drive?" to "I hope you know I ripped all of your pictures off the wall". It also removes the chorus after the third verse and goes straight to the fourth verse, which the video cuts Eminem at last receiving the letter from Stan, and the car sinking more into the water.

In the recent Fuse TV "version" of the video, various lines and words are silenced, more so than on the clean version of the LP, half of one of the beginning verses are cut out, and then the song fades out about halfway through the second verse. The LP version of the song is over six minutes long, and, as mentioned, the full version of the video is 8:15, however, when Fuse plays the "video" it is slightly over two minutes.

In Fuse's original state as a rock and alternative station, the same versions as on MTV were shown. "Stan" was also released on track 17 of Curtain Call: The Hits, which features Elton John. On the clean and explicit versions of Curtain Call: the Hits, the live track censored only the profanity, unlike the clean version of the studio track version of "Stan".