Oh, The Irony

No Money, Big Problems: Rapper 50 Cent Declares Bankruptcy

Conveniently, this came right after a court ordered him to pay $5 million in a sex-tape lawsuit.
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By Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

On Monday morning, rapper and entertainment mogul 50 Cent made the day of every single punster in the world by filing for personal bankruptcy.

Mr. Cent, whose legal name is Curtis James Jackson III, revealed in his Chapter 11 filings that he has somewhere between $10 and $50 million in assets and between $10 to $50 million in debt. Conveniently, his bankruptcy filings came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to Lastonia Leviston for uploading her sex tape online without her consent, and he may still face further charges for punitive damages. (According to the Associated Press, he allegedly posted the sex tape because Leviston’s boyfriend said she “wouldn’t mind if he did,” making the settlement one of the worst outcomes in the history of bro promises.)

It appears as if declaring bankruptcy is 50’s preferred legal strategy in dealing with the lawsuit: the New York Post reported in May that the multi-platinum artist had “ducked” the lawsuit by filing bankruptcy papers for his boxing-promotion company, SMS, claiming that he could barely pay the settlement, literally “minutes before the Manhattan trial was scheduled to start.” (50 Cent was once reportedly worth $155 million, and allegedly made a $1.6 million bet on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.)