50 Cent has put a number on what it cost him to star in Power. In a recent interview with GQ, the rapper and executive producer revealed he was earning $17,000 per episode during the show's first season, a figure he described as a deliberate sacrifice.
According to Billboard, 50 Cent made the disclosure while discussing his most iconic film and television work. The conversation also covered his long-running friction with series creator and showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh and lead actor Omari Hardwick.
The tension, 50 Cent explained, grew out of the show's public identity. As the series gained popularity, he said its association with his name created discomfort for those around him.
"When people have success for the first time in their career, sometimes they need it to be all theirs, right?" he said. "So the difficult thing is if they have their success for the first time, and it's a 50 Cent show. It is a 50 Cent show, like publicly people look at it like it's 'presented by 50 Cent.' The story is from Southside, Jamaica, Queens — everything is 50 Cent tied to the show. The music that's playing is 50 Cent."
He continued: "It got awkward for the writer, for the showrunner because she felt like it was registering as a 50 Cent show instead of her show, and that turned into … it got weird with her behaviors and the things that were going on behind the scenes with her, and then it also was friction between her and Omari because he was feeling like he was the lead and the star of the show, so she was having a problem with anybody that was leading the show because she felt like it was her show."
Despite those tensions, 50 Cent said he had no complaints about his character Kanan Stark being killed off. What he did take issue with was the compensation relative to his workload. Beyond acting, he served as executive producer and music supervisor, wrote the show's theme song, and handled what he described as the bulk of the series' promotional appearances.
"I took a pay cut to be there the entire time that I was on that show," he said. "I was being paid, in the very beginning, $17,000 per episode while executive producing the show, being the music supervisor pretty much, doing the theme song, doing all the promotion and publicity. It wasn't until the third season that they would accept the show on Good Morning America without me being there. I'm technically the star of Power until I introduced everybody to it, and then Omari Hardwick turned into the star of Power."
Separately, 50 Cent recently teased a collaboration involving himself, his mentor Eminem, and the late 2Pac for the official soundtrack tied to his upcoming role as Balrog in the newest Street Fighter film, which is set for release on October 16.
