It may have been a while since the world was blessed with a 50 Cent track but this does not stop him from popping in our news feeds once in a while for one thing or the other that he has done. Such is the relevance of Curtis Jackson known simply as 50 Cent – a rapper who has managed to get his voice heard through his music but who also does not fail to remind fans and haters alike that he is still here even when he is not on a track.
Curtis Jackson is most known for his music, but he has also dabbled into acting and producing and is also a businessman and investor who seems intent on ensuring that he stays as far away as he possibly can from the humble background that he came up from. Read on to find out more about the life and hustle of 50 Cent.
50 Cent’s Biography
Curtis Jackson, who is now known by his adopted professional name, 50 Cent, was born on the 6th of July 1972. He grew up in the time of the 1980s crack epidemic and lived in the borough of Queens. His mother sold drugs then and he joined her in the illegal trade when he was only 10 years old. He soon pivoted to pursuing a career in music and in the year 2000 he produced an album called Power of the Dollar for Colombia Records. Quite unfortunately, before the project could be released he was shot and it never saw the light of day.
The bullets did not stop 50 Cent who came back in 2002 with a compilation album that he titled Guess Who’s Back? It was that project that led him to be discovered by Eminem who then signed him under his Shady Records. Dr Dre and Eminem helped 50 Cent to become one of the best-selling rappers worldwide with his first project under the label being Get Rich or Die Trying, which was a huge commercial success. He was meanwhile rising in prominence with the East Coast hip-hop group G-Unit even becoming their de facto leader. 50 Cent then found G-Unit Records in 2003 and he signed G-Unit associates like Young Buck and Lloyd Banks.
50 Cent next album was named The Massacre. It was released in 2005 and also succeeded commercially. The rapper is now working on a sixth studio album, which is being called Streer King Immortal. His career so far has seen him record sales of over 30 million albums worldwide. He has also won several awards for his music including a Grammy, four BET Awards, three American Music Awards, and thirteen Billboard Music Awards.
He made his acting debut when he appeared in 2005 film Get Rich or Die Trying, which was actually a semi-autobiographical film. He has also featured in the 2008 movie Righteous Kill. He also forayed into television executive producing and starring in the show Power. 50 Cent has been ranked as the sixth-best artist of the 2000s by Billboard, and his albums Get Rich or Die Trying is considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 100 Best albums of the 2000s.
Details of his Girlfriend
50 Cent is not married but he has been involved with a number of women and has actually had children from two of them. In 1996, he was dating Shaniqua Tompkins and on October 13 of that year, she gave birth to a son for him whom they named Marquise Jackson. Shaniqua Tompkins would later sue him for $50 million alleging that he had promised to take care of her for life, but the case was dismissed by a judge.
The two regularly argue even on social media but 50 Cent has said that the birth of his son changed his life and switched up his priorities. His second son Sire Johnson was born on September 1, 2012, and is a product of his relationship with model Daphne Joy.
Bankruptcy and Current Net Worth
In 2007, Curtis Jackson was ranked as the second wealthiest rapper in the hip-hop industry. He lived in a mansion that was owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, and for years, he continued to be ranked among the richest of the richest in the American hip-hop scene. By 2015, 50 Cent was estimated to have a net worth of $155 million. He, however, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91 on the 13th of July 2015.
While his assets were listed to be within $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, 50 Cent testified under oath that he was worth only $4.4 million. Following the entire bankruptcy battle, it is difficult to peg the rappers actual net worth but his standard of living has not been much affected.
Weight Loss
If there was any doubt that 50 Cent takes his acting career as seriously as he takes his hip-hop career one just has to go back to 2011 when the rapper dropped some serious weight for the movie Things Fall Apart. The rapper looked shockingly thin in the photos he released online as he took on a role in the movie as a tribute to a friend who had died of cancer. For that role, he lost over 50 lb by putting himself on a strict liquid diet and running on the treadmill for three hours every day.