50 Cent opted out of performing at Donald Trump’s New York rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden even though the former president offered him $3 million, the rapper revealed on The Breakfast Club Tuesday.
“They wanted me [for] Sunday,” he said, and “They offered $3 million,” but he turned it down because “I’m afraid about politics,” he explained. “It’s because when you do get involved in it, no matter how you feel, some one passionately disagrees with you.”
To be sure, being part of that hate-fueled rally likely wouldn’t have been a good look for 50 Cent, as the night’s rhetoric was so vile that even Trump’s staunchest supporters have said the rally “alienated” would-be voters. However, despite Trump’s incendiary comments over the years, 50 Cent has expressed support for the former president in the past.
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Prior to Joe Biden dropping out of the race for reelection, 50 Cent made a surprise appearance at the White House in June, where he said, “I see [Black men] identifying with Trump, because they got RICO charges.” Trump is facing a RICO indictment in Georgia for his efforts in the state to overturn the 2016 election.
The following month, after Trump’s ear was grazed at his Pennsylvania rally, 50 cashed in on social media’s use of his song “Many Men” to support Trump. He performed the song with a parodied version of his album cover that featured Trump’s face instead of his own—and in true Trump fashion, started selling t-shirts with the song’s name.
50 Cent’s support for Trump seemed to be a sure thing, so much so that in July, CNN reported that the rapper may appear at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Ultimately his reps told The Daily Beast he was “slated to be elsewhere” and he never showed. With just a week to go, the rapper has stopped short of officially endorsing Trump for reelection.
In 2019, the rapper told The Daily Beast that Trump had offered him half a million dollars to attend his inauguration ceremony, but turned it down then because “Every dollar is not a good dollar.” The following year, he supported Trump for president, but ended up tweeting “F**k Trump, I never liked him”—reversing course once again amid backlash.
50 Cent said Tuesday that he’s done weighing in on politics at all, citing Kanye West as a good example of why not to. “That’s the formula for the confusion that sent Kanye to Japan,” he said on The Breakfast Club. “He said something about [politics], and now he can only go to Japan.”
