How Sharon Osbourne accidentally nicknamed 50 Cent “Fiddy”
50 Cent has gone by several names over the years, from Mr. Cent and Fifty to Fif and Fiddy; his stage name has morphed multiple times. It’s one of the more traditional expectations for rappers. Stage names come, go, and come back again as the different stages of the performer’s career morph alongside their name.
50 Cent has managed to maintain a range of different monikers without having to do a laborious PR name-changing ceremony. Still, many just know him as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. That said, one of his nicknames was actually created by X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne, who didn’t know what to call him.
During a press run for Power Book III: Raising Kanan, the lyricist spoke with On Demand and during the conversation the host asked him how he ended up with so many doctored versions of his initial moniker, to which the rapper replied “You know, Sharon changed my name!”
He explained that Osbourne accidentally invented the nickname Fiddy, recalling, “She said, ‘Fiddy Cents. Is it 50 or Fiddy?’ and I was like, ‘Whichever one makes you happy.’” He has always found the story quite amusing, and during an appearance on The Talk, the ‘In Da Club’ rhymer even unveiled that he wanted to collaborate with Osbourne’s husband, Ozzy Osbourne.
Many know that the Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ creator grew up in Southside Jamaica Queens and gained momentum under the wing of DJ Jazzy Jay. However, many people don’t know how he ended up with the stage name 50 Cent in the first place.
50 Cent was initially the nickname of a rebellious, thieving kid from Brooklyn who was infamous in the streets, but his real name was Kelvin Martin. In his book From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens, Fifty went into more detail about why he decided to use the nickname for himself.
Revealing he liked that it had a hidden meaning for insiders in the know, the rapper wrote, “I wasn’t going to run with the attitude of telling people that I had actually taken the name from the real 50 Cent. I just felt it was something an insider would get, and the rest of the world would just think it was catchy.”
He then explained, “The real 50 Cent was a stickup kid from Brooklyn who used to rob rappers. He had passed, but he was respected on the streets, so I wanted to keep his name alive. Other rappers were running around, calling themselves Al Capone and John Gotti and Pablo Escobar. If I was going to take a gangster’s name, then I wanted it at least to be that of someone who would say ‘What’s up’ to me on the street if we ever crossed paths.”
He added that he liked the name because it’s memorable, concluding, “I liked ’50 Cent’ because it seemed like something that people would remember — even a little kid is going to remember ‘50 Cent,’ especially when he starts to learn how to count money.”