Rapper 50 Cent, so named for his days spent slinging Kennedy half-dollars on the streets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today—a request that unfortunately offers no protection against the many money-related punchlines he’s spent the past decade-plus setting up. Besides literally naming himself after the highest amount of money possible, 50 Cent has made his own wealth and the pursuit thereof absolutely central to his songs, which are essentially quarterly earnings reports set to beats. For one thing, he called his breakthrough album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, a title that now suggests he actually meant “of embarrassment.”
After all, the filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Hartford, Connecticut, paint a very different, much less club-worthy financial picture than the one the man born Curtis Jackson sort-of sings about—and definitely much different than the $155 million Forbes estimated as his worth earlier this year. Today’s court papers claim that Jackson actually has assets and debts each in the range of $10 to $50 million, with somewhere between one and 49 creditors to his name. Previously, Jackson was reported to have made somewhere between $60 and $100 million just from his minority stake in Vitamin Water, making him worth nearly half a billion. He even rapped about this in the 2007 single “I Get Money,” just one of many 50 Cent songs that are now enjoyable ironically.
With his personal wealth no longer in his repertoire, 50 Cent will now rap exclusively about blowjobs, which no court in this land can take away from you.
