02:57 PM EDT 07/22/2008

Add PEOPLE News

50 Cent

Credit: Robin Wong/PR Photos
50 Cent Speaks Out about Missing His 11-Year-Old Son

Scandals & Feuds

50 Cent Speaks Out about Missing His 11-Year-Old Son

Originally posted 07/10/2008 01:15PM

50 Cent says not being able to see his 11-year old son Marquis "is the toughest, because he's my motivation."

"I'd like to be able to just see my baby," said the rapper in an interview with MTV.com.

50 Cent (real name: Curtis Jackson) has had limited contact with his son while he and Marquis's mother, ex-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins, battle over custody issues, following what authorities call a "suspicious" fire that destroyed the home where Marquis lived with Tompkins.

Credit: Tony Barson/WireImage
Rapper 50 Cent Files a $20 Million Lawsuit against His Ex | 50 Cent

Scandals & Feuds

Rapper 50 Cent Files a $20 Million Lawsuit against His Ex

Originally posted 06/20/2008 06:00PM

Rapper 50 Cent served his former girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, with a $20 million defamation lawsuit on Friday outside a Suffolk County, N.Y., court, for allegedly making offensive and false statements about the hip-hop star.

Following a fire on May 30 which burned down a Long Island home owned by 50 Cent (real name: Curtis Jackson) – in which Tompkins was living with their 11-year-old son, Marquise – Tompkins made defamatory statements, according to Jackson's court documents, accusing him of "trying to kill" her and their son by setting the fire.

"It's simply not true," Jackson's attorney, Brett Kimmel, told PEOPLE. 50 Cent was in Louisiana filming the movie Microwave Park with Sharon Stone at the time of the blaze.

Read More

Credit: Storms Media Group
50 Cent's House Burns Down in 'Suspicious' Fire

50 Cent's House Burns Down in 'Suspicious' Fire

Originally posted 05/30/2008 11:45AM

A Long Island, N.Y. home belonging to rapper 50 Cent (real name: Curtis Jackson) burned down Friday, the Associated Press reports.

Six people were hospitalized but in stable condition after suffering from smoke inhalation. Their names have not been released, but a lawyer for 50 Cent's former girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, says she lived in the house with her two children, including her 10-year-old son, Marquis, with the rapper.

Arson investigators reported to the scene on Friday, and firefighters call the blaze "suspicious."

A spokesperson for the musician, who was not at the house, released a statement Friday expressing relief that no one was hurt in the incident. "Informed this morning while filming a new motion picture on location in Louisiana, Curtis Jackson expressed deep concern over this fire at his property," said the spokesperson. "He is extremely thankful that everyone including his son, Marquis, escaped the burning house safely. He is confident that authorities will be conducting a thorough investigation of the incident and is eager to review their findings."

One of the first firefighters to arrive at the house, Dix Hills Fire Department Chief Larry Feld, told Newsday, "I would say there is a strong – a strong, strong – possibility that [the fire] is suspicious." When asked why, he replied: "The rapid movement of the fire. The volume of the fire ... It was engulfed. The home was totally gutted."

Tompkins filed suit against 50 Cent earlier in the year, alleging that he promised her the house – valued at $2.4 million – over a decade ago.
Brian Orloff

Advertisement
Credit: Ramin Talaie/AP
50 Cent Laughs Off Eminem Weigh-Gain Stories

50 Cent Laughs Off Eminem Weigh-Gain Stories

Originally posted 04/25/2008 06:30PM

50 Cent says don't believe the hype about his pal, Eminem, allegedly gaining weight.

"Em is in shape right now," 50 Cent tells MTV News. "He looks good. I seen him in Detroit. He's gonna look real good when you see him return."

Stories about Eminem's health and physique have been circulating for months. The Detroit-based rapper (real name Marshall Mathers) has been virtually absent from the music scene for the last year.

In January, Eminem was hospitalized with pneumonia, and a report claimed that his weight had ballooned more than 200 lbs.

But 50 Cent says his old friend is doing fine. "The last time I seen him we played basketball together," he told MTV. "He had a knee injury, so we chilled for a little bit."

Credit: Tony Barson/WireImage
50 Cent's Ex-Girlfriend Sues the Rapper | 50 Cent

Music News

50 Cent's Ex-Girlfriend Sues the Rapper

Originally posted 04/03/2008 04:15PM

There's no place like home – especially when someone is trying to kick you out. So says the ex-girlfriend of rapper 50 Cent, Shaniqua Tomkins, who claims the singer is trying to evict her and their 10-year-old son, Marquis, from their Long Island NY home, the Associated Press reports.

In court papers filed in Manhattan, Tomkins accuses the rapper, 32, (real name: Curtis Jackson) of breach of contract, claiming he had promised to buy a $2.4 million Dix Hills house for her and son, Marquis Jackson, then put the house under his own name.

Tomkins, who lived with the hip-hop star for four years until their split in 2001, was also in court a few months ago when she tried to up the child support payments to $50,000. But the judge’s ruling in February whittled the monthly amount down to $6,700 per month.

According to a source close to 50 Cent: "[Shaniqua] and her extended family – her son and her new lover – are living in the Long Island house which 50 is also paying for. So he's paying double for housing. She's supposed to be finding separate housing for her new family, and she hasn’t, and that’s why [they’re] in the situation [they're] in.”

A rep for the rapper tells PEOPLE: "We don’t comment on pending litigation."
Natasha Stoynoff

Credit: INF; Kevork Djansezian/AP
Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent in Steroid Probe | 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige

Crime & Courts

Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent in Steroid Probe

Originally posted 01/14/2008 10:55AM

Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, Timbaland and Tyler Perry are among the names that have surfaced on a long list of people in a current New York investigation of those who may have obtained steroids or human growth hormones, the Albany Times Union reports.

No one on the list is being accused of violating the law, says the paper, which explains that the probe is about halting the flow of the drugs by doctors who illegally write prescriptions without seeing patients. Witnesses on Long Island who are cooperating with investigators reportedly supplied the names of the celebrities, but the probe is mostly concerned with doctors' actions.

A rep for Blige, Karynne Tencer, is quoted in The New York Times as saying: "Mary J. Blige has never taken any performance-enhancing illegal steroids."

Spokespeople for the others were not available for comment. – Stephen M. Silverman

50 Cent to Host an Open House on Cribs | 50 Cent

Celeb Real Estate

50 Cent to Host an Open House on Cribs

Originally posted 11/29/2007 01:50PM

No need to travel to Farmington, Conn., to check out 50 Cent's place. He'll gladly show you around the mammoth property, now on the market for $18.5 million, Thursday night on MTV's Cribs.

The rapper has extensively renovated the 19-bedroom property since buying it from Mike Tyson three years ago. "It kind of had a Miami Vice feel," the 32-year-old rapper tells the Associated Press. "It was like turquoise blue on the floor and purple. It was crazy looking when I got there."

Read More

Credit: Ray Tamarra/Getty; Leon/Retna
Ciara Says She's 'Great Friends' with 50 Cent | 50 Cent, Ciara

Couples

Ciara Says She's 'Great Friends' with 50 Cent

Originally posted 10/26/2007 12:40PM

They may appear in a steamy music video for her single "Can't Leave 'Em Alone," but don't get the wrong idea: Ciara and 50 cent are, as she puts it, "good friends, absolutely."

"He's a really great friend, and great friends think of really great [birthday presents]," Ciara told PEOPLE at her 22nd birthday party at Manhattan's Nikki Midtown on Thursday night, though she wouldn't reveal what he gave her. "For some reason, with this friend, everybody turns everything into something else!"

Read More

Credit: Jim Spellman/WireImage; New York Daily News / WENN
Latest Celebrity Feud: Lance Bass vs. 50 Cent | 50 Cent, Lance Bass

Music News

Latest Celebrity Feud: Lance Bass vs. 50 Cent

Originally posted 10/25/2007 11:30AM

Forget the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalries of the past. The latest celebrity feud has a former boybander and a top rap star dishing out threats.

Lance Bass and 50 Cent (real name: Curtis James Jackson III) are releasing books at the same time, and even held their launch parties on the same night. At 50's party in New York's Philippe Tuesday, he told the New York Daily News that Bass better watch his back. "He doesn't stand a chance," the rapper said as he promoted his coffee-table book, 50 x 50.

Read More

Advertisement
Credit: Jim Spellman/WireImage; Brian Ach/WireImage
50 Cent Weighs In as Kanye West Gets Emmy Gig | 50 Cent, Kanye West

50 Cent Weighs In as Kanye West Gets Emmy Gig

Originally posted 09/12/2007 02:30PM

50 Cent is singing the praises of Britney Spears and saying Kayne West's outburst about the pop star opening the Video Music Awards Sunday was unwarranted.

Read More