50 CENT TO MENTOR TRANS TEEN AND DENIES BEING HOMOPHOBIC

50 CENT

Round-the-way rapper and gazillionaire entrepreneur Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent, will be mentoring a transgender teen in a new six-part reality series that will appear on the Sundance Channel called “Dream School.” 50 Cent, the award-winning, multi-platinum controversial artist, will executive produce and appear on the show as well.
The move is a departure from the alleged homophobic rep he has developed over the years, reports The Wrap.

The unscripted six-part, hour-long life-changing project presents a place for drop-outs to be inspired and do an about face on their troubled lives. Celebs like music maestro Swizz Beats and educators like civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson have signed on to help these kids overcome past failures and instill in them a hope for a brighter tomorrow.

In “Dream School,” Jackson is mentoring a youth named Alan, a transgendered boy, who was born a girl and is featured on the show as someone who got bullied.  “I want to graduate and get away from the people at my school,” Alan says on the show. “I got bullied. I went to the hospital. My mom just didn’t even visit me. I wish I was the person my parents wanted me to be. I wish I was born the person I am now because…I was born a girl.”

Ironically Jackson, who has long been accused of being a homophobe, now defends himself as someone who is not.  Even though Jackson has used the word “faggot” in a few of his song lyrics and was quoted in Playboy Magazine back in 2004 as stating that he “wasn’t in to faggots,” he staunchly defends himself against accusers who refer to him as anti-gay.

“I don’t have homophobia. I never did,” Jackson told The Wrap. “When you actually make music that mirrors the environment, you use the terminology,” he said. “You use the language. Like if you were making a painting, and you were painting the American flag, if I told you to do that, and not use red, not use the harsh terms or the tougher messages, you would never successfully paint the flag.”

The rap icon continues, “I would use the terminology that would be going around. My grandfather may say terms — people may actually say terms based on their experiences that were happening at that point. … You’ve got people that would call some people a ‘redneck,’ or some people ‘n*gga.’ It’s the term of that time or that period. They’re not necessarily racist, but they’ve heard those terms used around them, and they use them.”

Nearly three years ago, Jackson tweeted a hateful statement that centered around the tragic suicide of gay teen Tyler Clementi, who jumped to his death from a bridge after he was outed, stating:

If you a man and your over 25 and you don’t eat pussy just kill your self damn it. The world will be a better place. Lol.

Jackson’s “former” attitude toward gays is ironic because he, himself, has publicly admitted that his own mother, who passed away when he was a tween, had same-sex relationships at a time when society was not so accepting.

But now Jackson seems to be trying to adhere to the “live and let live” credo: He supported our President’s marriage equality backing by stating during an MTV UK interview, ’If the President is saying that, then who am I to go the other way?’ he said.

See Jackson turning a new leaf on the series premiere of “Dream School,” which airs on the Sundance Channel on October 7th. Check local listings for times.