In March 2026, posts on social media claimed people were boycotting rapper and actor 50 Cent after he supposedly said children should not be allowed to watch "cartoons with LGBTQ+ themes."
A March 17 Facebook post sharing the claim read, "50 Cent is facing backlash after comments about LGBTQ themes in children's cartoons sparked calls for a boycott online," for instance.
Snopes found examples of the claim spreading on Facebook, Instagram, X and Reddit, and readers contacted us to ask whether the rumor was true.
Rapper 50 cent is facing extreme backlash after saying children should NOT be exposed to cartoons with LGBTQ themes.
He said children should be raised in the "traditional way" and we should let "kids be kids."
Do you agree with him? pic.twitter.com/WVwj1ZLuEi— Wake Up America (@wakeupusa) March 6, 2026
In fact, we briefly mentioned the rumor in a fact check of a nearly identical claim about actor Kurt Russell.
The rumor about 50 Cent (like the one about Russell) was false.
The claim came from social media pages using artificial intelligence tools to create shocking, fictitious stories about public figures, and serves as an excellent example of the all-too-prevalent style of posting sometimes derogatorily called AI slop.
Creators of such content capitalize on social media users' willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (Snopes has previously reported on the business strategy.) As is the case here, AI slop rumors often recycle claims from previous AI-generated rumors, making small changes like swapping the rumor's subject from one celebrity to another.
Although disproving a nearly identical claim already was a great start toward debunking this version, we also searched Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to locate possible evidence from credible sources about the rapper's supposed statement and the boycott that supposedly followed. If the story was true, journalists with reputable entertainment news outlets would have reported it, but that was not the case.
While the searches did reveal a 2021 article noting that 50 Cent has faced criticism for anti-LGBTQ+ comments in the past, we found no evidence or video footage supporting the idea that he more recently said children should not watch pro-LGBTQ+ cartoons.
The captions on posts sharing the rumor often had features common to AI-generated text, including vague wording without the details that might allow a reader to definitively confirm the rumor. GPTZero, a tool that aims to detect AI-generated text, determined with 99% certainty one caption was AI-generated, for instance.
Let us note here: These types of AI detection tools are fallible. Snopes cautions people against using them for definitive answers on media's authenticity without supporting evidence.
Even before the rumor about Russell, Snopes fact-checked several AI-generated rumors about various celebrities making anti-LGBTQ+ comments. For example, in February 2026, we checked a claim about American figure skater Alysa Liu, who won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics.