Rapper-actor 50 Cent is suggesting the National Football League could part ways with Jay-Z and find another partner to produce its Super Bowl halftime shows amid allegations that Jay-Z raped a minor in connection with the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex-trafficking investigation.
Jay-Z has been a partner with the NFL for its Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, when the league took him on amid the rising social justice movement at the time.
The partnership was a quick reversal for the rapper who had turned down any involvement in the league’s Super Bowl show only the year before. But since that time, Jay-Z has not just taken on the role of co-producer for the annual show, he also became an integral part of the NFL’s social justice work.
Now, with a rape allegation hanging over Jay-Z’s head, rapper 50 Cent is raking his rival over the coals.
In a message referring to the Super Bowl halftime show posted on his Instagram account, 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, wrote, “Ok I don’t know what’s going on, but are we gonna still have the Super Bowl *worried emoji* I’m just asking for a friend!”
50 Cent, of course, had alleged that Jay-Z tried to have him banned from the NFL’s annual halftime show in 2022.
Kendrick Lamar is scheduled to headline the Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans early next year to top off the 2024 NFL season.
For his part, Jay-Z is denying the allegations and claiming that the attorney who filed the claims, Tony Buzbee, is a “deplorable human” and an “ambulance chaser in a cheap suit.”
“My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a ‘lawyer’ named Tony Buzbee,” the Roc Nation founder said in a public statement.
“What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle,” Jay-Z continued.
“No sir, it had the opposite effect!” Jay-Z, insisted. “It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion,’ he continued. ‘So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!”
Jay-Z went on to call the allegations “heinous in nature” and said he doubted the sincerity of the charges since Buzbee is filing a civil lawsuit and not a criminal case. And he then maligned Buzbee’s service in the U.S. Marines.
“You claim to be a marine?! Marines are known for their valor, you have neither honor nor dignity,” he wrote accusingly.
Jay-Z concluded his retort to Buzbee’s claims with a lamentation over what the allegations is doing to his family.
“My only heartbreak is for my family,’ he continued. ‘My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people,” he said.
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