With his larger-than-life persona and blossoming music empire growing each day, New York-bred rapper 50 Cent could lend a lofty financial hand to the thousands of Japanese displaced by the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the country March 11.
Instead, the 35-year-old superstar took to his Twitter account where he unleashed a barrage of shocking tongue-in-cheek jokes about the disaster.
“Man I hate to say this but the world is coming to a end. Look at Japan tell the people you value you love them… US west coast TUSNAMI (sic) watch f**k this I’m going back to New York,” he tweeted.
The multiplatinum-selling rapper continued, “It’s all good, ’til b*****s see their Christian Louboutins floating down da street.”
The G-Unit founder later admitted some of his tweets were “ignorant,” but “I do it for shock value.”
Also under fire for jokes about the natural disaster in Japan – which the country’s government fears may have killed 10,000 people – is comedian Gilbert Gottfried. The 56-year-old actor released several tweets about the dire situation in Japan, among them, “What does every Japanese person have in their apartment? Flood lights.”
Gottfried was later fired from his job as the voice of Aflac’s duck mascot over the incendiary comments.
In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, Japan is now facing a nuclear crisis as radioactive materials continue to seep from four reactors in the Fukashima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.