There was once a time when we expected more from rapper-turned-mogul Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson than hearing his unbearable two cents—but sadly that time has passed. Long gone are the smash hits that made the once beloved “In Da Club” artist unstoppable; today, he’s best known for choosing beef with vulnerable women than with the “Many Men” of hip-hop who made him famous.
Even those who haven’t been following Jackson’s antics probably felt his wrath when he recently taunted rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion on social media. In a tweet posted last week, 50 Cent shared a meme comparing Meg to disgraced Empire actor Jussie Smollett, with the caption: “Damn I’m confused all this shit going around. I don’t know what to think. LOL.”
Yes, Jackson was suggesting that Megan Thee Stallion was lying about being shot by rapper Tory Lanez, who is currently on trial facing criminal charges connected to the incident. In doing so, Jackson chose to turn her trauma into an insensitive joke. Several online condemned his actions, but none of it seemed to stop a man who has garnered a reputation for trolling women obsessively.
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For several years, 50 Cent has been obnoxiously unbearable on social media; a simple Google search of his antics show how he’s taunted various women online via cheap shots and dirty insults. The misogyny has ranged from incessant slut-shaming to downright cyberbullying—things that had gotten Jackson caught up in even further legal drama.
It’s hard to pinpoint when things went left in his decision to double down on insulting women instead of engaging in beefs with the likes of Rick Ross and Ja Rule. But it’s probably safe to say that things were never the same after his notorious breakup with actress Vivica A. Fox that led to their bitter multi-year feud on social media. During that breakup, Jackson morphed into an insufferable bully, once describing himself as a “troll” that “got my asshole merit badge on.”
When he wasn’t trolling Fox about having alleged botched surgery, he was going after former Roc-A-Fella Records singer Teairra Mari by resharing uncompromised photos of her on Instagram. In 2018, Mari claimed she was the victim of revenge porn after she alleged that her ex-boyfriend leaked explicit photos and videos of them on her Instagram account. 50 Cent took an image from the leak and shared it with his more than 20 million followers. The situation got so heated that Instagram had to intervene by taking the raunchy content off his page.
For anyone keeping tally, it appears that Jackson has a particular penchant for coming after Black women. In July 2020, the “P.I.M.P.” rapper appeared on Lil Wayne’s Young Money Radio, where he infamously remarked that Black women “get mad, they get angry” when Black men date women of different ethnicities.
“You see a lot of sisters and they be like, ‘Oh you fucking with this kind of girl?’” he said. “That shit is exotic! This shit look different from what you see in the hood every day.”
Sure, 50. Because nothing can be more insightful than remixing the angry Black woman trope with problematic stereotypes that invoke fetishism and colorism.
Rather than rebuke his cringey remarks after the subsequent backlash, Jackson doubled down. In a later interview with Haute Living, he reiterated: “What I said exactly was: When the person is from somewhere other than what you’ve experienced, the communication is a little different because they come from different walks of life.
“And when I said that, [people said], ‘You don’t think black girls are exotic.’ And I said, ‘They be angry when they see a Black man with someone else other than African American women in general.”
Yeah, still no.
As Jackson has evolved in his professional life—transitioning from Grammy-nominated recording artist to full-out Hollywood mogul—you would think he would grow out of these antics. But at 47 years old, 50 Cent has gotten remarkably worse than the once petty rap beefs he became known for in his twenties. Rather than drop a diss track about Ja Rule, he’s now making ageist and sexist jabs at Madonna online. It seems as though he’s reduced himself to a grumpy rich man who’s bored with his excesses and has chosen to troll the world rather than relax. That sounds very, very familiar.
It would be one thing if it was just him, but Jackson seems to be joining a long line of fading men in hip-hop who appear to be having a midlife crisis on social media (looking at you, Joe Budden, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, and Boosie). Whether it’s their uncanny inability to respect women or project homophobia, it’s become clear that elder statesmen rappers such as 50 Cent won’t let go of the past as it continues to ravish what’s left of their reputations in the future. What a damn shame.
