50 Cent settles penis enlargement case
50 Cent has reached a settlement with the owner of a medical centre, after he accused her of implying online that he’d used her company to undergo penis enlargement surgery.
In court documents filed in Miami on Friday, legal reps for the rapper – real name Curtis Jackson – and defendant Angela Kogan said that they have “reached an agreement in principle to settle Mr Jackson’s claims” and were “in the process of preparing an agreement to finalise and memorialise” the deal.
Jackson sued Kogan last September, admitting that he’d had a photo taken with her in 2020, but insisting that he had assumed that she was just a fan. He was pissed off then when that photo appeared on the social media accounts of her company, Perfection Plastic Surgery and MedSpa.
And he was even more miffed when it showed up in an article on gossip site The Shade Room in which Kogan discussed the rise in plastic surgery for men, including penile enhancements. All of this, he said, implied that he had used and endorsed the services of Kogan’s company.
Kogan countered that Jackson’s defence was ludicrous, given that the photo was taken in her office after he and his girlfriend had popped in for some free treatments. So, there was no way that he could have thought that he was simply taking a selfie with a fan.
Everyone understood at the time, she claimed, that the photo was some kind of quid pro quo for the free treatments, meaning it was a given she might post it to social media.
She also denied that the sharing of the photo – either on social media or in the Shade Room article – had implied anything about what treatments or surgery Jackson may or may not have received.
Efforts by Kogan to have the case dismissed were, however, knocked back in December. Judge Robert N Scola Jr refused to throw out the case on the grounds that Jackson could “plausibly argue that the defendants unauthorisedly used his likeness to promote their business”.
He also said that the photo may have been far more valuable than the treatments the rapper had received.
As part of the lawsuit, Jackson also sued The Shade Room, but settled that portion of his claim last month. It’s not clear what sort of agreement Jackson has now reached with Kogan. We’ll just have to wait for the two sides to “finalise and memorialise” it.