What started as a brilliant and monumental business partnership between 50 Cent and STARZ has quickly soured. The rapper’s social media followers have become privy to his disdain for the network that houses his Power franchise and BMF. With the news that one of the previously announced Books in the Power Universe has been canceled, 50 Cent is sharing that there are other programs that he’s pulling. You may recall the highly successful deal that 50 Cent inked with STARZ and Lionsgate in 2018, thanks to the success of Power. According to a report from Variety, it was a four-year where he and his company, G-Unit Film & Television, Inc., would develop new scripted and unscripted projects for the network.
At the time, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht shared his excitement for the deal he entered with the chart-topping rapper. He told Variety that 50 Cent has “proven” to make good on delivering “content that our viewers want to watch.” In addition, Albrecht called him “the real deal.” “Ane, we have given him a real deal,” Albrecht said to Variety. He added his belief that it was “among the most significant deals to date for an Executive Producer in premium television.”
But over time, their relationship didn’t seem to pan out to 50 Cent’s liking. He often took to social media to air their dirty laundry. He even threatened to pull certain shows from their programming. This March, the rapper took to Instagram and penned a since-deleted post that expressed his upset over the network renewing the crime drama Hightown, while Power Book IV: Force had been “sitting in limbo.””If I told you how much dumb s**t I deal with over here,” wrote 50 Cent, as captured by The Hollywood Reporter. He continued admonishing his G-Unit Television & Film employees to pack up the offices.
Then some months later, 50 Cent returned to social media to share that two more shows he had in production at STARZ were no longer happening. These programs were the series A Moment in Time: The Massacre, centered around his beef with The Game, and A Moment in Time: Murder Was the Case, focusing on Snoop Dogg’s 1993 trial.
50 Cent recently appeared on The Breakfast Club, where he detailed why his relationship with the network has been in shambles. The rapper and media mogul expressed that although he has some shows returning, like Raising Kanan, the relationship with STARZ won’t be “where it was headed.”
According to the award-winning rapper, he “won’t be loading” his other shows on the network. “What they have there is [going to] be there,” he says, while the new material will land on other platforms.
50 Cent expressed his feelings that he is “outperforming” the network. In addition, he argues that while others may state he’s responsible for 50% of their viewership, he feels it’s more like 80 percent. He also said that while STARZ feels their mandate is “premium women,” he begs to differ due to their programming and what the viewers gravitate towards. Neither Power nor any of its spin-offs fit that mandate, 50 argued. Additionally, he feels as though the network is trying to divert toward grabbing more “premium white women” because the success they receive does not mirror the content they produce.
