50 Cent is having trouble logging in to our Zoom. Multiple links have been sent his way — three, by my count — to no avail. The imbroglio is excusable given the early hour and the number of different directions he’s currently being pulled, with 40 projects spread across 12 different networks, not to mention the podcasts, movies and revitalizing the city of Shreveport, Louisiana, home to his G-Unit Films and Television studio. We must chat via Zoom because 50 is back home in Houston, Texas, having decamped from his native New York City in 2021.
“I’m trying to get it together over here!” he explains upon entering the video chat. “For a second there we were experiencing technical difficulties.”
The occasion for the chat is “Street Fighter,” a new blockbuster film adaptation of the popular video game series. Directed by Kitao Sakurai (“Bad Trip”), the film centers Ryu (Andrew Koji) and his adoptive brother Ken (Noah Centineo), two seasoned fighters who are recruited by Chun-Li (Callina Liang) to enter a World Warrior tournament held by the dictator M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), who has designs on extracting Ryu’s fighting power for personal gain. 50 plays Balrog, a boxer who works for Bison with a distinctive hi-top fade and pointed-front hairdo. The character was modeled after Mike Tyson; and to get into fighting shape, 50 trained three hours a day for nine weeks, dropping from 238 pounds to 200 pounds. “And no, I didn’t do no weight-loss shot!” he exclaims.
These days, 50 — who is now 51 — is more business magnate than hip-hop artist, presiding over a sprawling TV empire that includes the “Power” universe and “Fightland” on Starz, and eye-opening documentaries like the Emmy-winning Netflix docuseries “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” that exposed the evils of the artist sometimes known as Diddy. He’s also prepping a Hulu docuseries on himself.
He spoke about it all, from Trump and Diddy to the tragic loss of his mom and why he won’t work with “Power” showrunner Courtney Kemp again (along with her response), in a no-holds-barred interview with Variety.
This is how I know you’re more businessman than rapper now: I’ve never done a 9 a.m. interview with a rapper.
Right? They’re not even up and functioning from last night!
Let’s start with “Street Fighter.” How did you accomplish that hairdo for Balrog?
Haha! I started playing with the idea of it ahead of time with my barber, and we decided there was no way to do it without cutting back into my hairline to create the outline of where [the hair piece] goes. It was tough keeping it in place once we started the fight scenes. They were doing touch-ups all the time. When I got ready to get out of there, I had no facial hair and no nothing! I was like, yo, I have to do Vegas tomorrow!
You got pretty ripped for the movie. You looked like aughts 50.
You know what’s crazy? I have to lose weight to look intensely in shape. I’ve got it, it’s just under the stuff. Some people fight their way up to gain mass, but I fight my way down. I can look like security, bro. I get big. You’re going to see me soon looking big in another action-film project that I’m going to work on.
There’s a “Many Men” needle drop in “Street Fighter.” Was that your idea?
That was the idea of the producer Cale [Boyter], who was cool. The character is based on Mike Tyson, and anybody who knows Mike knows that if it wasn’t boxing for him, it would have been armed robbery. That’s just who he was with the level of aggression that came out of Brownsville. So, my character is just coming out of jail and able to be in the tournament with the rest of them. He wants to fight everywhere.
You have strange connections to Mike Tyson. Not only did you buy his gigantic house in Connecticut, which ended up being a huge money suck, but isn’t it true that the guy who shot you nine times, Darryl “Hommo” Baum, was Tyson’s friend and bodyguard?
Mike dedicated his fight [in June 2000 against Lou Savarese] to “Hommo.” But Mike wasn’t aware what happened. That’s just what they do at home. My connections to Mike are my connections to the street. I clashed with Jimmy Henchman and Mike had connections to Jimmy, too. When Mike started seeing me in places, he would look at me [knowingly] and go, “Yo,” like 50 is the real deal and the real shit right there. One time, I was going into the casino and ran into Mike and he told me, “50, I’m glad you’re with him, but he’s not going to know when to stop [spending]. He’s me.” He was talking about Floyd [Mayweather]. And you see Floyd’s financial state now, and he kind of did what Mike did with the finances.
Floyd screwed you too, right? On your boxing promotion company TMT?
But I love him. He’s like a brother, and we never needed each other. We are our own separate entities that have established ourselves in different ways. There were benefits to me being around at the time, since he didn’t have the social following that he has now. He would say, “Tell 5 to post this and it’s going to be all over the place!” He was sending me the blurb of what he wanted out there, so I’d post it and then it’d be all over the place. But we connected even prior to my success in music. He flew his entire entourage to Puerto Rico to see me in 2002, even before “Get Rich or Die Tryin.’” He knew I was going to be the biggest thing in music.
And you were an amateur boxer starting at 11 and continued it through your teenage years. Did you initially want to be a pro boxer?
I did. I think I live vicariously through [Mayweather] in the sense of not just being a fighter but being the best fighter. Boxing isn’t a sport you can play. You can play basketball, football and baseball, but in boxing, if you’re losing and getting your ass whooped, you’re just not good enough and not on the level. Each time you get out of the ring punch-drunk you have a personal epiphany about what you’re doing! You think, “Fuck it, I could do construction. I don’t need to be doing this shit.”
I heard that you accidentally cracked your co-star Noah Centineo in the face?
Yeah! I worked for 30 days with the boxing trainer they had in Australia even before we started working with the stunt crew, so the moves were programmed in my system. We rehearsed it at half-speed and then bop-bop! I think it’s because he was doing so many stunts in the movie, so he didn’t slip and the punch just got him. I was like, “My bad, bro! You didn’t move!” He was like, “Oh, shit. All right. Come on, it’s OK.” And we just went right back into doing it. But that was a crazy moment, and I felt bad because it’s rare that I actually like everyone involved in a project, but I had fun with these people and I’d go back and do it again in a heartbeat. Cody [Rhodes] got a yacht for the whole cast for one weekend while we were in Australia and I rented out an amusement park and took the entire cast and crew as well as their loved ones.
You said it’s rare that you actually like everyone on a project. Is there anyone you clashed with so bad that you’d never work with them again?
Courtney [Kemp]. I don’t look forward to working with her ever again. I don’t think that she’s wholeheartedly a bad person, I just think that it got out of control for her. After the success of “Power,” she would go, “I wrote it.” Well, you did write it, but I uploaded everything that you wrote, and we got a “no” from everybody before we got a “yes,” and I wrote songs that captured, at its nucleus, each one of the leads that we had and that emotionally captured energy for scenes. When we went to pitch “Power” to Chris Albrecht [then-CEO of Starz], we’d pitch the show and then we would play a minute and 30 seconds of a song, and then we’d pitch the show and play another minute and 30 seconds of a song. I produced eight songs that went into it, including the theme song.
So, you feel she was minimizing your contributions to the show?
I think she forgot. Because in the beginning, the sell for the show was “50 Cent.” That’s it. There was a point with Albrecht where I was like, “Y’all know what time it is, and I’ll tell you when the show comes back on.” And then Starz watched 40% of their subscribers disappear. They called me in to the office to talk about it, and said, “What kind of partner does this?!” I said, “You guys have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and I want to be clear that if you’re not identifying that you have a programming issue, then I don’t know what to say to you. Me saying, ‘Y’all know what time it is, and I’ll tell you when the show comes back on” means that you have nothing else on this network that people want to watch. They’ll cancel the subscription and then come back when it’s back on.” So, then I pitched them the “Power” universe. They didn’t want the “Power” universe; I forced the “Power” universe on them when they saw the forty percent decrease. It opened the idea up to them of, “Oh, let’s put some more of it on so we can force the subscribers to stay.” And it put me in a different position where they were like, “Oh… He can fuck us up and turn this shit off.”
Now that’s power.
It made them see things a little bit differently. Chris [Albrecht] is such an innovative thinker that he saw the opportunity to make it great. And the budgeting for the original “Power” had gotten so fuckin’ high that the show cost nearly $12 million an episode. All the clothes you saw weren’t being sent. Every single clothing item on the show was being purchased three times. I was like, “What the fuck are you doing that for? They need to promote the clothing company.”
When it came time to do “BMF” and the different shows, I lowered the budget because I had the clothing companies giving us clothes for promotional purposes, since they’ll get ten million eyeballs on it. There was all kinds of weird shit going on, but it got to a point where Courtney was trying to run the entire network through one show. She also said she didn’t want to do “Raising Kanan” because she didn’t want to tell a story where they already know the ending. Half the shit she was saying just didn’t make sense. I told her, “This is the late-‘80s going into the ‘90s, and that was the golden era for the drug trade.” Sascha [Penn] was able to make a masterpiece out of it that ran for five seasons.
(In a statement to Variety, Kemp responded: “While 50’s recollection of budgets and production requirements is uninformed, as he was rarely in a budget meeting, I have never once understated his importance in the genesis of ‘Power.’ While he did not write nor create the series, he was a large part of its birth. That said, I am completely bewildered by his need to mention me in interviews or podcasts. I have completely moved on in my career, and I hope that the imminent success of ‘Street Fighter’ allows him to do the same.”)
I want to talk about “Sean Combs: The Reckoning.” That project had such a huge global impact that resulted in real-life consequences.
I wasn’t surprised. When it came to the Diddy doc, I had started it six months before I was able to get Alex Stapleton, the showrunner. And it’s important to understand that she is the reason why it’s great. It could have been over-aggressive where it felt like you’re attacking the person, but she used people’s perspectives to tell their truth. And what he did was actually worse than what’s in the doc.
What do you feel was left out of the doc that was even worse?
When you look at the Cassie situation, people think of just the hallway [attack]. But you have to look at what transpired that made it get to that point where you’re kicking her on the floor, and where it didn’t even matter to him what he did to her. He also got in the habit of not paying people — even his artists, where he raked them and took their publishing — and he used that as a form of control.
I still can’t believe he allegedly blew up Kid Cudi’s car. I mean, Cudi seems like the last person you’d want to blow up. That’s just crazy, man.
And what was that for? That was for his dealings with Cassie. [Diddy] had the habit of dealing with someone else’s woman. Like, every woman you’ve seen him with was with someone from celebrity culture prior to him, including Cassie who was with Ryan Leslie. He kind of took her from Ryan Leslie. And his choices are not by chance. He picks the person based on who they were with prior. He needed confirmation of his success through who they were with prior to him.
So, I heard that he sent you a funeral wreath of flowers to the club E11even in Miami? My friend Rob manages E11even. What happened there? Were you sitting there getting a lap dance and then all of a sudden someone delivers you a funeral wreath?
Haha! I know Rob. They sent a bouquet of flowers over and I thought, “OK, I know where that came from.”
Did it come with a note?
It didn’t have anything crazy on the note, but it was definitely for me.
Is that the extent of the threats Diddy’s made toward you over the doc?
There were things that didn’t surface publicly that were attempts from him to damage the perception of me. He had people saying things about his activities that went back years and years, and these things didn’t surface until they removed the statute of limitations from sexual-assault allegations. Recently, he had a law firm that pulled away from him after [his accusers] had the ability to move forward with a lawsuit against him, which is weird because usually law firms will take their 30% contingency in the case. That same law firm has sixty sexual-assault cases for him. And it’s been two years already. Imagine responding to each of those lawsuits? That’s probably $150,000 a piece, or $9 million total. So, when he saw the $9 million bill, he probably went, “I didn’t agree to that bill!” The law firm is probably going to end up suing him.
I wanted to go back to what you said about Diddy making attempts to damage the perception of you. What sort of stuff was he trying to spread?
He was trying to find people to make frivolous accusations against me. From his perspective, it was, “How do I cloud what’s going to happen to me?” You hear him on the phone in the doc saying he needed people in the media to help him discredit everybody else.
I don’t think “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” has gotten enough credit for the recent conviction of Duane “Keffe D” Davis for his role in Tupac’s murder. The doc really helped get that story in front of a lot of eyeballs.
It does feel like that because it was the best presentation of it. But look, it wasn’t top secret, bro. He was saying that stuff in books. That information was clear and out there. The problem with getting away with things is that the person feels they can get away with anything, so then they regress further and do something later that turns into their downfall. It’s rare that people get away with things and then decide not to do those things again. It makes you feel like you have the power to get away with shit, so you do more shit like try to blow up Kid Cudi’s car. And where’s the police report for the car blowing up? Where are the police reports for people getting shot in the studio?
Now, Netflix has such a wide reach that this went global. And international folks feel that if 50 is saying it, this is going to be the real hip hop insider shit that goes on. You know how important real is to hip hop and youth culture. These kids now will tell you who they shot last week and create a visual picture of the crime scene.
That got Bobby Shmurda in trouble.
Yeah. A few guys out there wrote shit that was so accurate, I was like, “Damn! You just told on yourself! What the fuck is that?!” I was writing about stories I’d experienced, but those were situations in the past.
Not “Mitch caught a body ‘bout a week ago.”
Yeah.
One of my favorite stories about you is the time you bought 200 tickets on Groupon for $3,000 to a Ja Rule concert in Texas so that the first few rows would be completely empty.
The tickets were going for that cheap on Groupon! I said, “I want those first three rows.” I know what it feels like when they put the crowd too far back, so since it’s all digital, I saw that I got all the tickets but maybe four in the first three rows.
Will Ja Rule be appearing in your upcoming Hulu docuseries about yourself?
Probably a small portion of it. There will be certain things that we talk about. It’s really less important to my life than people see it. In the docuseries, you’ll see me get emotional at points, but usually about what happened before. The loss of my mom — that is where I was the most confused and vulnerable.
You were only eight years old.
Yeah. So, you’ve got to imagine when you only really have her — since I didn’t know my dad at all — when they tried to explain to me, “Your mom is gone, and she’s not coming back,” I was like, “No, she’s going to come back.” I couldn’t even process it at that point. And then I stayed at my grandmother’s. All that was rough, so we’ll reflect back on that and also talk about other stuff. When I got shot is not the first time I’d been shot at, or me shooting at other people.
What was it like to find out your mom was a lesbian, and how did that shape your view of the LGBT community?
Marlow, look: When your mom has friends around, you look at them and just see friends. And how often does a woman have a female friend that she’s close to that she talks with often? As a child, I just saw two women hanging out. My grandmother informed me later that there was more going on and they weren’t just friends, and I was like, “Oh! Now I know what that was!” I’m not ashamed of that in any way. I grew up around that. I used vulnerability at the time I explained it, going, “Coming up I was confused, my mommy kissing a girl / Confusion occurs comin’ up in the cold world.”
On “Hate It or Love It.”
Yeah. Other people have those things in their experience and their upbringing, but they leave it out because they don’t think that’s “cool.” I didn’t care about being vulnerable — it made it more powerful for me because I know someone else has had that experience and would understand it.
Have you and Jay-Z ever talked about this? Because he also found out later in life that his mother is a lesbian.
No, but it is something we have in common.
It is interesting that two of the biggest hip hop artists of our time have gay moms.
But then, find the line. We just reacted differently to it. One of us doesn’t mind, and the other one kind of minds a little bit.
You are mighty prolific. Are there any unannounced projects you have in development that you can share with Variety?
I have 40 shows across 12 different networks, and 10 are going toward air. I completed 18 episodes of “Power: Origins” that are coming and also released “Fightland,” which was my first international show since it was U.K.-based, and am preparing for the second season of it. We still didn’t get the nod yet, but I think the success of the project commands that. I’ve seen the numbers. There’s my own doc at Hulu that we’re working on and a heap of other projects. There’s “Cash Kings,” which two networks want, and then “Bone Parish” at Starz, along with “Billion Dollar Lawyer” and “Power: Legacy.”
They’ve just got to rename Starz the Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Network at this point.
Haha. And then Peacock has an adaptation of my book “The Accomplice,” which will star Taraji P. Henson. I got the dream cast and crew that I wanted for that one.
I’m getting the wrap, so lastly, Trump has offered you millions to perform at/or attend his rallies, but you’ve turned him down every time. And that’s easy money that you’ve turned down.
People make interesting choices, and sometimes you don’t know why they’re doing it. I think it’s a lack of a clear understanding of everything that’s going on. I try to stay as purple as possible, you know what I’m saying? I don’t understand things that are going on from the Democratic side at points, and then I don’t understand some of the mentality that’s connected to the Republican side. I think when people get ready to actually vote, they do it based on what’s affecting them. But I don’t have beef with nobody, especially in that realm. When you start to do big business, it becomes political because you see the state or local government provide aid for it since it will employ a lot of people. What can start out as a project for the studios can become a whole revitalization of a city.
Like what you’re doing in Shreveport.
Yeah. It becomes a way bigger deal because my instincts are to just go for it. I’ve already accomplished so much given where I’ve come from, so just try your luck convincing me that I can’t do it, bro. I’m already convinced I can.
You survived nine shots.
Tell me what’s left!
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