Rapper and actor 50 Cent has filed for federal bankruptcy protection, days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit. Curtis Jackson III, who owns a home in Farmington, Conn., filed for Chapter 11 protection in US District Court in Hartford today. The filing lists both his assets and liabilities as between $10 million and $50 million. It comes after a New York jury on Friday ordered Jackson to pay $5 million to Lastonia Leviston, who said he acquired a sex tape she made with her boyfriend, added himself as a crude commentator, and posted it online without her permission. (Forbes calls Jackson's filing "suspiciously timed.")
Wearing a wig and calling himself Pimpin' Curly in the video, Jackson made explicit remarks about Leviston and taunted her former boyfriend and his rap rival, Rick Ross, the AP reports. Jackson got the 2008 tape from the man in the video, Leviston's boyfriend at the time. The rapper and his lawyers say Jackson didn't actually post the video but that Leviston's then-boyfriend said she wouldn't mind if he did, and he thought that would suffice. "This was something done to me," Leviston says. "I didn't have a choice. I would never, ever do this to myself." (He joins these other celebs who have declared bankruptcy.)
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