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50 Cent Roasts Hate Crime Hoaxer’s Attempted Pride Comeback 

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50 cent in concert
Photo Credit: "File:50 cent in concert.jpg" by Alex Const is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Notorious hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett’s return to the public eye did not get past 50 Cent without a pointedly public swipe.

The Harlem Pride footage gave 50 Cent an easy opening to turn Smollett’s comeback into a “Power” victory lap.

“See I told you ‘POWER’ was the s—, but No you want to watch ‘Empire.’ Now look this its all your fault. LOL,” he wrote alongside the footage.

The post fit a pattern for 50 Cent, who has spent years using Smollett’s name as both an “Empire” punchline and a legal-scandal target.

Their feud had already been simmering when “Power” and “Empire” were both fighting for viewership on television.

Once Smollett’s Chicago case exploded, the TV rivalry became part of 50 Cent’s running commentary on the actor himself.

He had also mocked Smollett in the past for describing himself as the “gay Tupac” in 2019.

Smollett’s camp fired back at the latest dig by suggesting 50 Cent should focus on his own issues.

“Given the complexities of his own personal life, 50 Cent might be better served tending to matters closer to home rather than taking public shots at Jussie,” a representative for Smollett said to Fox News.

The jab likely references reports of an alleged leaked video involving rival rapper and convicted sex trafficker, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and his former partner, Daphne Joy, the mother of his son.

“It feels like it special because it’s my son’s mom in the actual tape,” the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson remarked, before noting that he had not been involved with Joy for over a decade.

50 Cent took another swipe at Smollett when he shared a four-year-old article by the Guardian that was titled, “Jussie Smollett found guilty of faking hate crime against himself.”

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The rapper captioned the article with, “Hey happy pride guys, ahhh someone in the booking department forgot this guy went to jail for faking a hate crime,” on Monday night.

Smollett’s career was upended by his January 2019 claim that two men attacked him in downtown Chicago, shouted “MAGA” and put a rope around his neck.

Chicago police later said they found evidence suggesting Smollett staged the incident, an accusation the actor denied while pursuing legal action of his own against the city.

The first wave of felony charges disappeared after a prosecution deal, but the case continued to shadow him.

The legal fight later swung back against him when he was convicted in 2021 and received a 150-day county jail sentence tied to the false-report case.

He was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution and a $25,000 fine to Chicago.

He was released on appeal in March 2022, then saw the conviction wiped out in November 2024.

Smollett later reached a 2025 settlement with Chicago, agreeing to make a $50,000 charitable donation to resolve the city’s lawsuit against him.

Chicago’s civil case dated back to April 2019, when the city sought to recoup its investigation costs.

His Harlem Pride appearance marked his first full show in years. Before taking the stage, Smollett framed the performance as an emotional homecoming and a chance to give the crowd a brief escape.

“I’m so excited to perform back home for Harlem Pride. It’s been eight years since I last gave a full show. So, to be here with these incredible artists and activists means the world to me,” Smollett remarked about the event.

“We have 30 minutes to make folks forget their worries while recognizing that now is the time, more than ever before, to be bolder, braver and unapologetically proud,” he added.

Smollett was not the only public figure to face a rough Pride-weekend spotlight.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Pride Parade appearance also turned rough Sunday, when hecklers drowned out his attempt to lean on his decades-long history with the march.

In the footage, the New York Democrat carried a rainbow flag and tried to speak through a bullhorn while the crowd pushed back.

“Hi everybody, so I was the first senator to ever march in this parade, 1999, and I haven’t missed one yet,” Schumer stated.

The response did not soften when he tried to cheer the crowd.

“Happy Pride, everybody,” Schumer continued as hecklers sneered. “I was the first senator to march in this parade, and I’m not the last.”

In San Francisco, fellow Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener’s Pride-weekend appearance collapsed into a confrontation over Israel and Gaza.

Video from Friday showed Wiener moving through Dolores Park as several people closed in around him. “We f—ing hate you!” one heckler shouted.

A social media user’s video captured him criticizing Wiener’s Gaza stance while the lawmaker tried to leave.

“I think your policy on the genocide is terrible!” the poster shouted. “I think you do not belong here!”

The criticism grew more personal as Wiener was accused of turning his back on the LGBT community.

“You’ve been terrible on Gaza! You do not belong here anymore Scott and it breaks my f—ing heart!” the social media user stated. “It breaks my heart that someone who wrote good legislation for queers is so f—ing terrible on Gaza!”

Wiener cast the confrontation as a rupture with an event he said he had supported since its first march in 2004, explaining that he was headed to a trans-led Pride Shabbat service when the encounter began.

“As I walked through Dolores Park to participate in a trans-led Pride Shabbat service in connection with the trans march, a group of people began screaming at me, ran up to me, surrounded me, and began harassing me, both verbally and physically, including physical contact,” Wiener recalled.

He said the confrontation included accusations about Israel. “They made statements about my ‘Israeli handlers,’ among many other inaccurate, extreme, and vile statements,” Wiener continued.

“They were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park.”

The Pride-adjacent backlash also stretched into celebrity commentary when transgender actor Elliot Page was mocked over remarks about “healthy masculinity.”

The “Juno” star, who once played a pregnant teenager, addressed “healthy masculinity” during an appearance on “It’s Open with Ilana Glazer,” where the conversation turned Page’s “gender journey.”

“Healthy masculinity, to me, is or even just something I’ve felt as, like, transitioning, is like leaning away from whenever there is some sort of impulse or expectation you’ve put on yourself to, like, shut down,” Page told Glazer. “Or conform in a way that usually feels like ‘this,’ like I am closing off.”

Page also linked healthy masculinity to basic self-care, including drinking water, and to men making more effort to “love themselves.”

Not the Bee mocked the answer as closer to femininity than masculinity.

“Wow, the healthy masculinity she’s talking about sure sounds a lot like femininity,” the site wrote.

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