50 Cent Says He Shut Down WorldStarHipHop, Owner Denies

Shortly after well-known hip-hop website Worldstarhiphop.com shut down for unknown reasons, 50 Cent took to his Twitter to let it be known he was the force behind its temporary power cut.

Just hours later, the controversial rapper made a call to New York radio station Hot 97 to publicly express the reasons behind his actions towards the site. "I took a lawsuit... we've been through the process for a while," he said. "Two weeks from now we'll be in mediation to find out exactly how much they owe me. They've been advertising me on Worldstar for two years straight. They used the 'I Am Robot' image at the top of the site and my head was on the actual robot.

"Away from that, them encouraging disrespect on every level possible" is another reason for his dislike of the site, 50 added.

But in the same conversation -- and in true 50 form -- 50 sarcastically said he might've not been responsible for the site coming down, confusing listeners as he teased, "I didn't shut them down. If I rob a bank I wouldn't tell you I did... [but] maybe I did. It's up to the public to decide."

To put more of a twist on the story, Worldstarhiphop.com owner and CEO, a man named Q, called the radio station just minutes after and negated all of 50's claims of involvement. "It's a technical difficulty and has nothing to do with 50 or homeland security or hackers," he said. "We're more or less having difficulties with the site itself as far as our server. We're getting so much traffic we constantly have to upgrade."

Tu further discredit 50's claims, Q reminded listeners that the site had been down before. "We were down in '07  because we got hacked. We got hacked last year and we've also had problems with our bandwith before," he said.

According to Q, the site will be up in the next 24 hours. Q also gave 50 Cent a shout out for the "good promo," although he admitted that he and 50 do have personal beef due to miscommunication and a "falling out a while back."

50 Cent said during his chat that in the new year he is "encouraging people to be completely positive" and to "live better," but that he has "old things that have to be dealt with."