50 Cent on Weight Jokes: "Fat Shaming Only Applies if You're Ashamed"

Carys Anderson

February 18, 2022 | 9:40am ET

50 Cent is riding high after last weekend’s legendary Super Bowl LVI performance, and not even fat shamers can bring him down. After his throwback show with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and Anderson .Paak brought him back under the public microscope, the rapper responded to those who made jokes about his weight on social media, proclaiming, “Fat shaming only applies when you’re ashamed of your fat.”

50 followed Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on the SoFi stadium stage to perform his 2003 hit “In da Club,” and he opened the song by hanging upside down the same way he does in the track’s music video. Fans were quick to point out that the 46-year-old rapper — donning the same tank top he wears later in the video, rather than hanging out shirtless as he did in the clip’s original workout montage — had filled out in the two decades since he first performed the stunt. 50, of course, remained unbothered, and instead took the opportunity to match Twitter’s jokes with a crack himself.

“Get your G-Unit Tanktops & Headbands Now,” he tweeted, linking to his G-Unit brand, where the shirts are going for $40 bucks a pop. All publicity is good publicity, as they say.

50 Cent then turned to Instagram to address his critics more directly. Posting a screenshot of a New York Post story detailing his troll, the rapper wrote, “I call this teasing me, They’re just teasing me because they know i can drop the weight. that’s why i laugh with them. Fat shaming only applies when your ashamed of your fat. LOL.”