Fat Joe says that the tense moment between himself and 50 Cent at the 2005 MTV VMA’s cost him a massive business deal. Recalling the incident in his new memoir, The Book of Jose, Joe says that he lost out on $20 million afterward.
“Halfway through the show, I went out on the stage to give Missy Elliott an award,” Joe recalled in an excerpt of the book published by GQ. “What the audience at home didn’t see was that during the commercial break beforehand, 50 Cent got out of his seat and started walking the house. He went up to the audience in the cheap seats and started waving to me. It was like he was dar-ing me to get off the stage and physically confront him. Then he went down to the floor and started slapping fives with Jay-Z and Diddy.”
Later, Joe explained that he thought they were ready to come to blows.
“I was saying to myself, Okay, we’re about to fight. We’re about to get it on right here at the VMAs,” Joe wrote. “When the show came back on—this is live TV, mind you—he went back to his seat. The G-Unit started yelling at me while I’m reading off the teleprompter. The Terror Squad, offstage in the wings, started barking back. That’s when I dropped my jab: ‘I feel safe with all the police protection courtesy of G-Unit.’”
50 Cent went on to perform a medley of his current hits before closing out with: “Fat Joe is pussy, man. Pussy boy. Fuck boy.”
A few days later, Joe was set to meet with the Jordan brand to discuss a new shoe called the Fat Joe Jordan. Ahead of the meeting, he got a call from Michael Jordan.
“’You know I love you, Big Joe, but you’re too hot right now,’ he told me on a phone call. ‘I wanted to do it, but I’m not into all that rap beef. With all this controversy, we can’t do the sneaker anymore,’” Joe added. “Lost about $20 million by not getting that deal. I lost out on other endorsements too. Promoters definitely didn’t book me and 50 Cent on the same shows. Everybody had to keep us separated. But as fate would have it, after the VMAs, we didn’t see each other again in person for almost a decade.”
The Book of Jose hit bookshelves on Tuesday.
[Via]