A history of humiliating rivals and their families raises uncomfortable questions about 50 Cent’s latest stand against online bullying.
The word “trolling” has done 50 Cent a lot of favors. It makes a personal insult sound like a pastime, giving everyone watching permission to laugh without thinking too much about the person on the receiving end. He’s made that arrangement work for years, and his audience knows the routine.
Someone gets embarrassed, they fire back, and suddenly there’s another reason to keep watching. Even people who can’t stand him have to admit that he knows how to get under somebody’s skin. The problem is that being funny doesn’t necessarily make someone harmless.
There’s also something peculiar about the rules surrounding his feuds. What starts as a disagreement between two entertainers can quickly involve people who had nothing to do with it. A rival’s mother might find herself dragged into the conflict. Someone’s child can become the punchline because 50 doesn’t particularly like their parent. These aren’t simply accusations from people who couldn’t take a joke.
His history includes public apologies and a multimillion-dollar judgment, although neither has done much to diminish his reputation as Hip Hop’s resident troll. If anything, the controversy has often been part of the attraction.
That makes his latest battle with Tia Kemp particularly interesting. After Kemp allegedly made degrading remarks about his 14-year-old son, Sire Jackson, 50 condemned the bullying of minors and pursued legal action. A Florida judge granted a temporary injunction protecting Sire, while a separate federal lawsuit seeks at least $6 million in damages.
The rapper has argued that Kemp’s comments went beyond ordinary social media insults, targeting a child with fabricated claims about his development. It’s difficult to disagree with the principle behind his objection. Children shouldn’t become targets simply because adults have unresolved issues with one another.
Still, there’s an uncomfortable irony in watching 50 demand consequences for behavior that bears an unsettling resemblance to some of his own public attacks. His willingness to mock other people’s families hasn’t always been met with the same outrage he’s now expressing.
In some cases, those incidents became some of his most memorable trolling moments. While he has every right to protect Sire, the question of where the jokes end and the bullying begins becomes considerably more complicated when looking at the people 50 has targeted himself.
When The Feud Reaches The Family
Being involved in a feud with 50 Cent has never been a requirement for becoming one of his targets. During his 2009 war with Rick Ross, he released a video called “A Psychic Told Me,” featuring footage of a woman identified as DJ Khaled’s mother at work.
He also displayed what was purported to be her residence while reciting a threatening poem about knowing her whereabouts. The stunt was particularly unsettling because Khaled’s mother had nothing to do with the dispute. 50 later defended his actions as retaliation for a website he associated with Ross’s camp posting an offensive image of his son, Marquise.
Ross’s camp denied involvement with the site, per XXL. Apparently, bringing somebody’s child into a feud was unacceptable, but involving somebody else’s mother was fair retaliation.
The behavior wasn’t confined to the particularly nasty feud with Ross. In 2022, 50 accused Lil’ Kim of taking shots at Nicki Minaj’s son on her remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Plan B.” Kim denied the accusation, insisting her lyrics were about an ex. Nevertheless, 50 responded by mocking the eye condition of Kim’s daughter, Royal Reign, writing, “Her baby eye f*cked up. LOL.” Kim wasn’t amused. “What you will not do is come for MY CHILD,” she declared, while her daughter’s father, Mr. Papers, also confronted 50 and told him to keep their daughter out of his “Internet comedy.”
Source: Hotnewhiphop.com