Gayle King once approached 50 Cent after he insulted her best friend Oprah Winfrey many years ago. Fiddy recounts the story in his new book “Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter,” which is set for an April 28 release.
He said that King approached him at an event for Bette Midler’s foundation.
“Gayle is the real deal. A very sophisticated, secure and smart lady,” he wrote, according to Page Six. “She’s never afraid of a situation … So she marched right up to me and basically said, ‘Why you talkin’ s–t about my girl?’ ”
Fiddy’s response to her was that he heard Winfrey slam the type of rap music he makes and figured she didn’t care for him either. So to get some more publicity, 50 insulted her publicly, which is something he often does to get his name buzzing: use fake beefs with other celebrities as a strategy.
“I’d love to be Oprah’s friend, but if we can’t be friends, could we at least be enemies?” 50 said he told King.
He appeared on Winfrey’s “Oprah’s Next Chapter” in 2012, which seemingly marked the end of tensions between them.
“Before meeting me, they had bought into the 50 Cent persona … Someone who got into beefs and drama because he just couldn’t help himself,” he wrote about the meeting. “But when I said, ‘At least let me be an enemy,’ they understood that when I got into a beef, it was never driven by emotion. Instead, I was moving off of strategy.”
The issues between Winfrey and 50 began in 2006 when 50 spoke with the Associated Press and talked about the audience she had on “The Oprah Winfrey” show, which ended its long run in 2011.
“I think she caters to older white women,” he said. “Oprah’s audience is my audience’s parents. So I could care less about Oprah or her show.”
When Winfrey and 50 spoke on “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” she asked him about that comment.
“I did hear that you said something like I had white women in my audience that were as old as your grandmother,” she stated. “I felt that was a pointed criticism. Did you say things about me to be provocative, or did you just not like me?
“I was saying it’s a conservative audience, their kids are listening to it and they look for something that allows them to be a little rebellious,” 50 answered.
While it seemed that 50 Cent put aside his beef with the talk show host, the rapper has recently taken more shots at Winfrey as well as King.
The “P.I.M.P.” artist attacked Winfrey for her hand in the Michael Jackson documentary as well as the Russell Simmons documentary which she eventually backed out of. He also criticized King for her interview with Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant.
