Fifty appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote his new, UK-based TV show Fightland. Yet he spent a lot of time talking about Bette Midler and how she roped him into helping restore green spaces in New York.
Fallon started the conversation by pulling out a photo of 50 Cent with Bette Midler, the iconic American singer and actress. Fifty’s friendship with Midler goes back to their work on the Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Community Garden in Jamaica, Queens. They met at one of her fundraising events back in 2008. Bette would invite celebrities to “adopt a tree” by paying for a sapling, but 50 Cent ended up adopting the larger idea: using money and visibility to make the city better.
Laughing, Fifty described how Midler, while small in stature, intimidated him into parting with his money and inspired him to do more good for his neighbourhood.
NYRP, her organisation, they do all the green in the city. The whole idea to do it, it came from me meeting with Bette. When I realised what they did, I was like, “Yo, I want to do that in my neighbourhood”.
She invited me to this banquet. It was super nice. I didn’t know it was even going on in the city. The tables were like $25,000 for you to get there. And they didn’t even charge me the $25,000. So I was like, “Yo, this is cool”, right?
When we got there, they had these paddles at the table, and then I had the paddle. They came to make sure I had the paddle. So, a cherry tree was like $2,500. And she was like, “Now, who’s going to get 10 cherry trees?”
Fifty imitated Bette’s steely stare and pointing finger aimed at him, which made Fif raise the paddle.
That was $25,000 real fast.
According to the G-Unity Foundation website, the larger project cost even more. Fifty partnered with Bette Midler’s environmental nonprofit, the New York Restoration Project, to transform neglected Baisley Park in Queens into an outdoor children’s learning garden and community area. Yet this will last longer and leave a more positive impact than any new car or gold chain can promise. That is the kind of legacy that can outlive a person.