The disgraced former Empire star Jussie Smollett reemerged over the weekend to perform at a pride event in Harlem in New York City. Smollett is best known for his alleged hate crime hoax that he has been accused of staging years ago.
Unfortunately for Smollett, it didn’t take long for his pride event performance to backfire on him, as the rapper 50 Cent took to social media to mock him for it.
50 Cent Humiliates Smollett
50 Cent took to Instagram on Sunday to post a video of Smollett’s performance.
“See I told you POWER was the [expletive],” the 50-year-old rapper wrote in a caption. This was a reference to his own television show Power, which aired from 2014-2020.
“No you want to watch Empire. Now look this is all your fault. LOL,” 50 Cent added, reigniting the years-long feud between the two series.
Check out 50 Cent’s post for yourself below.
Smollett’s History
Smollett, 44, has long been seen as an incredibly controversial figure.
In December of 2021, Smollett was convicted of lying to police in Chicago, Illinois after allegedly staging a hate crime against himself. He had claimed two years before that he had been jumped by two white men. Smollett alleged that his attackers hurled racial and homophobic slurs against him before putting a noose around his neck.
Police, however, later concluded that Smollett had hired two black men to attack him. The men claimed that Smollett wanted to garner publicity so that he could get a higher salary on Empire.
Afterwards, Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months’ probation. He was also hit with a $130,160 fine. Smollett only served a few days of his sentence, however, before an appeals court granted his release pending an appeal.
Smollett later settled a lawsuit from the city of Chicago in early 2025. This came after the city claimed it spent $130,000 investigating the alleged hate crime incident.
Smollett Claims His Innocence
Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Smollett still claims to this day that the hate crime really happened.
“I want to have all of these things in my life, and I don’t want to have a felony on my record for something that I didn’t do,” Smollett said in 2024. “That’s what we’re fighting for.”
“I know that on the surface it probably seems like why doesn’t he just serve the time, why doesn’t he just let this go,” he continued. “It would be easier if I had in fact done this to say that I did it. I wouldn’t have spent almost $3 million of my own money. I wouldn’t have had a trial.”
In the years since then, Smollett has attempted to come back by appearing in a few projects. He was a celebrity contestant on Special Forces in 2025. That year, he was also the subject of a Netflix documentary The Truth About Jussie Smollett.
Smollett can claim that he was telling the truth about his alleged hate crime all that he wants to, but the public isn’t buying it. In the end, most Americans believe that Smollett attempted to play off America’s current racial and political divisions for his own personal gain.
Shame on Harlem Pride for allowing Smollett to perform at this event. If anyone should stay “cancelled” forever, it’s Jussie Smollett.