I'm sorry if what I'm about to say is going to make you feel old, but 50 Cent's song "In da Club" was released TWENTY years ago. As someone who is currently in his early 40s, this is mildly painful to accept. It seems like it was just a few years ago when I heard "In da Club" for the first time. In reality, that event occurred while I was in college… 20 years ago. I vividly remember being at a bar when the DJ played that song. Everyone lost their mind. We forced that poor DJ to play "In da Club" at least six or seven times that night, to the point where he got angry and stopped taking requests.
But it's true. 50 Cent's smash-hit debut single was released in January 2003. It debuted at #67 on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart. A few weeks later it was in the top 10. It then spent nine consecutive weeks at #1. So if you time traveled to this exact date 20 years ago, "In da Club" would have been the #1 song in the country. The #2 song was R. Kelly's "Ignition (Remix)." The #3 song was Sean Paul's "Get Busy."
Anyways. As you know, 50 Cent was a master at capitalizing off the success of his 12x Platinum debut album "Get Rich or Die Tryin." In the 20 years since he exploded on the scene, 50 Cent carved out a career that has been marked by some very unique highs and lows.
Career Highs
In the last 20 years 50 Cent sold over 30 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide. He became a respectable actor. He's produced several successful television shows. He's had several successful alcohol brand collaborations, including Effen Vodka and a deal with Sire Spirits cognac which has led to several NBA team official partnerships. Most importantly, 50 Cent revolutionized the concept of the celebrity endorsement deal after he demanded equity over cash from Vitamin Water and ended up making $100 million.
Career Lows
50 had a to pay $10 million to an ex-girlfriend of rival rapper Rick Ross after posting a sex tape that featured the woman on his social media. Around the same time, a headphone company sued him successfully for trademark infringement. This resulted in a $17.5 million legal judgement. The combined $22.5 million worth of urgent legal fees forced 50 Cent to declare personal bankruptcy in July 2015. 50 has recently claimed to have spent more than $20 million on legal fees alone during his career. His albums sales cooled and he's had a number of public feuds, most notably with former BFF Floyd Mayweather.
Through it all, we have tracked the highs and lows of 50 Cent's net worth. By our count, at his absolute zenith circa 2009 (post Vitamin Water cash-out, pre-lawsuits), 50 Cent was worth $100 million. At his lowest point after the bankruptcy filing, 50's fortune was briefly zero because his assets were almost exactly out-weighed by his debts.
Today, thanks to a lucrative Starz production deal, the sale of Effen Vodka, his Sire Spirits deal and a career resurgence that has seen him back on a world tour, we estimate that 50 Cent's net worth is currently…
$40 million
That's a perfectly respectable fortune. However, if recent claims made by Mr. Cent are to be believed, he's actually been a billionaire since 2007…
(Photo by Gregory Bojorquez/Getty Images)
"Billionaire Since 2007"
So where are we going with all of this build up? I wanted you to have all of that background before telling you the following:
On a recent episode of "The Enthusiast Podcast." 50 Cent made the outlandish claim that he has "been a billionaire since 2007."
In his own words:
"So when they financially say, "Oh you're a billionaire, this person is a billionaire', it's like, 'I've been a billionaire since 2007. I'm that far from where I came from that I've been a billionaire financially [since 2007] because everybody around me is being paid…"
50 claims he has been a billionaire for years but "public perception" has made it so he has never been officially deemed a member of the three comma club like other celebrity billionaires like Jay-Z, George Lucas, Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry/
FYI, by our count, not only is Jay-Z the richest rapper in the world with a $2 billion net worth, he's also the ONLY billionaire rapper in the world today.
Diddy comes in a close second with a net worth of $900 million.
A year ago Kanye West was a billionaire. As you probably heard, that's no longer the case.
Dr. Dre came extremely close to hitting billionaire status a few years after selling Beats by Dre to Apple. According to his own divorce filings Dr. Dre was worth around $450 million in late 2021. Today he is worth $500 million. That's after paying his ex-wife a $100 million divorce settlement and selling his music catalog for $200 million.
As much as I want to believe that 50 Cent is a billionaire, and has been since 2007, unfortunately that claim does not match reality. First of all, let me remind you that 50's own bankruptcy court filings showed he was essentially worth ZERO dollars in 2015. In the filings he claimed to have $10-50m worth of assets and an equal amount of debt. So right there, we know he was nowhere close to being a billionaire in 2015.
Furthermore, there just have not been any significant windfall events or investments in recent years that could possibly justify 50 Cent's fortune being $1 billion today, let alone "since 2007." We stand by our $40 million current net worth estimate until proven otherwise.
In the meantime, if 50 Cent wants to be an official billionaire at some point, he's gonna have to get much, much, much richer… or die tryin.
