50 Cent filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday, following a Manhattan jury’s ruling that the rapper owes $5m to a woman whose sex tape he leaked, Lastonia Leviston, the mother of one of rapper Rick Ross’s children. The video features 50’s sarcastic commentary as a character named Pimpin’ Curly, and he released it in 2009 in an effort to embarrass the Miami maven, with whom he was feuding.
The joke is on 50 now, however, as the filing seems to represent an astonishing reversal of fortune for the rapper, whose net worth Forbes estimated at $155m just two months ago.
“It’s a breathtaking fall,” opined TMZ. But is it? 50 Cent is the ultimate troll, and he’s shown it repeatedly over the years, whether clowning rival rappers – such as Ross, Fat Joe, and Ja Rule – or the Securities and Exchange Commission, as in 2011, when he convinced many of his Twitter followers to invest in a penny stock he owned.
In the bankruptcy filings this week 50 said his assets are between $10m and $50m, and that his liabilities fall in that same range. There’s reason to believe these numbers more than the $155m from the Forbes list. While Zack O’Malley Greenburg does an excellent job calculating estimates of the wealth of musicians for the magazine, that’s all they are – estimates, based on publicly available information and anything else he can find out in his reporting. “It’s possible that he’s trolling a bit, but I tend to think that something like this wouldn’t be on the table if there weren’t a cash shortage,” O’Malley Greenburg told me. (You can read his analysis here.)
What makes things difficult is that most public figures keep their financial information private, and bling-y rappers like 50 are understandably vague and secretive. When in 2007 Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau – which owned Vitaminwater, and of which 50 owned a portion – there were all sorts of pie-in-the-sky guesses about how much he made. $410m? Um, no. $60-$100m is probably more reasonable. Not surprisingly, however, 50 didn’t go out of his way to clarify any of these figures. “I’m stanky rich, I’m-a die tryin’ to spend this shit,” he rapped on his hit, I Get Money.
What’s so shocking about the bankruptcy filing is that 50 has long wanted us to believe he was extremely wealthy. Even as his music sales stalled out and he split with Interscope Records, he maintained an image as a high-flying businessman. He had – or was an investor in – headphones (SMS Audio), underwear (Frigo), an energy drink (SK), a vodka (Effen), a TV show (Power) and plenty more. But most of his products haven’t been blockbusters; in fact, the only way most of his fans probably hear about them is from his constant hashtagging on social media. In May his boxing promotions company (also called SMS) went bankrupt. Meanwhile, he’s bought a ton of cars but has been unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, which he purchased from Mike Tyson in 2003 for $4.1m, and listed for as much as $18.5m.
So, yes, it’s hard out there for a P.I.M.P. But, still, $60-100m from Coke is not chump change, and he remains one of the most successful musicians of the modern era, with his debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’ selling six million copies, and follow-up The Massacre selling five million. His acting career is proceeding apace as well: he’s appeared in Power and the upcoming Jake Gyllenhaal boxing flick Southpaw. He reportedly won a lot of money betting on the fight between Manny Pacquiao and 50’s sometime friend Floyd Mayweather. (And he didn’t have to donate the $750,000 he promised if Mayweather could read an entire page of a Harry Potter book.)
Filing for bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re broke. Chapter 11 is usually declared by businesses to help them reorganize, and means one’s assets aren’t liquidated. 50 will be required to offer up detailed personal financial information, of course, and a bankruptcy court will need to approve many major decisions. But, in the style of Donald Trump, 50’s lawyer William A Brewer III painted this as a strategic move, rather than an admission of failure:
“This filing for personal bankruptcy protection permits Mr Jackson to continue his involvement with various business interests and continue his work as an entertainer, while he pursues an orderly reorganization of his financial affairs,” Brewer wrote in a statement.
One thing is clear: 50 is not as financially savvy as we thought. No matter which way you slice it, filing for bankruptcy is not an efficient way to make money.
But that may not be his goal. We know 50 doesn’t take kindly to anyone who crosses him, and that he likes to battle them in extravagant, public ways. “Rick Ross, I’m-a fuck your life up, for fun,” he said during the Rick Ross beef.
Is it possible that the bankruptcy filing is simply an elaborate way of getting out of paying Leviston all she’s entitled to? As some have speculated, both in his recent promotions company bankruptcy filing and now, this could be a game of financial chess.
Publicly humiliating yourself by declaring bankruptcy wouldn’t be most folks’ idea of fun. Then again, most people haven’t taken trolling to such great heights. Does 50 enjoy messing with people more than he enjoys his hard-won cash? That’s the $5m question.
