Photo Credit: 50 Cent (Instagram)
50 Cent doubles down on his lawsuit against Skillhouse producer Ryan Kavanaugh, alleging the unauthorized use of his image damaged his reputation.
Curis “50 Cent” Jackson is enjoying the warm reception of the Netflix Sean “Diddy” Combs docuseries he produced, but not all is well for the rapper and business mogul. He’s still busy with a legal battle against the producers of Skillhouse. The low-budget horror satire film stars 50 Cent alongside social media personalities Bryce Hall and Hannah Stocking.
The flick bombed at the box office in July at about $100,000, and the reception was even worse, with one critic calling it a “giant pile of shit.” Now, Jackson is suing producer Ryan Kavanaugh for at least $5 million in damages for the “brazen and unauthorized” use of his image.
According to legal documents, the rapper and business mogul says that even though a deal was never reached for him to appear in the movie, he still filmed his scenes hoping the paperwork would eventually get done. But it never did, and Jackson says he was never compensated. Therefore, the film is using his image and likeness without his permission.
Further, Jackson’s lawsuit claims the film was advertised in trailers and promotional material as being “a 50 Cent movie,” and “produced by 50 Cent.” He also alleges they used bottles of his champagne brand, Chemin du Roi, to further add credibility to his involvement in the project.
Even more damning, 50 Cent claims that his brand was used by Kavanaugh and his team to launch their own streaming service, GenTV, to compete with the rapper’s own 50 Cent Action. Between all the promotional material and the terrible reviews, Jackson says the film significantly hurt his chances of landing more acting gigs.
Jackson first sued Kavanaugh and the GenTV team back in April, but things have heated up since then as the producer evidently refused to back down. Kavanaugh and GenTV “plan not only to steal Jackson’s reputation and goodwill amongst his millions of fans to boost their own film, but also to use that film to unfairly compete with Jackson’s other business ventures,” the rapper’s lawyers write.
In a twist of fate, the latest filing follows Diddy’s legal team filing a lawsuit against Netflix for the release of the 50 Cent-produced docuseries, Sean Combs: The Reckoning. In that filing, the Combs team alleges that Netflix specifically sought the involvement of his longtime rival, Jackson, as revenge for a failed deal with Combs.
