Before 50 Cent broke through to the mainstream with ‘In Da Club’, the rapper (real name Curtis Jackson) was on the New York underground. That said, as a free agent it was Eminem, under Interscope, who ultimately chose to sign 50 Cent to his label Shady Records.
50 Cent has previously spoken about how Eminem helped him in his career as a mentor and why their relationship is so important to him. However, in 2003, following the success of his debut album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, the Queens rapper was keen to make a movie, but his friend quickly shot him down.
Time and time again, Jackson has detailed the gift of having Eminem’s mentorship and has sung the rapper’s praises, but he was extremely shocked when his counterpart rejected the idea. In a 2005 interview with IGN Entertainment, the Massacre artist unveiled the details of getting rejected by Eminem.
Following his breakout, Jackson was desperate to make a film, especially having seen Eminem’s 8 Mile. Elaborating on how he initially began writing the motion picture, 50 Cent explained, “After the first week of sales of Get Rich or Die Tryin’, we started talking about the film. The first week sales came in, and we had the projections for the next week, and they said, ‘It’s gonna be big enough.’”
He continued, “I talked to them about it and found the right writers, Terry Winter came out on the tour with me during ‘Rock the Mic.’ It was me, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, Sean Paul, Fabulous, Lil’ Mo… We went out on the road, and he stayed with me for two and a half months, and he compiled the information.”
Revealing that Eminem was not a fan of the idea, Jackson explained, “Em was no help for me on this film. He started out teasing at me [saying], ‘Yo, I don’t know why you let them talk you into that,’It’s gonna be terrible. They’re going to have you up there 20 hours. You’ll be doing this, you’ll be doing that. How’d you let them tell you that?’”
However, 50 then revealed that Eminem had only said it to drive him to prove everyone wrong and thought it was a good idea. You can watch the trailer for Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ the film in the video below.
