Fat Joe Claims Feuding With Jay-Z & 50 Cent Cost Him Sneaker Deals: ‘They Shut It Down’

Fat Joe claims he was set to be the first rapper with an Air Jordan retro sneaker, but his feud with 50 Cent, which spilled over to the MTV airwaves, allegedly lost him the deal.

Joey Crack and his podcast partner Jadakiss joined Complex‘s Sneaker Shopping for a tag-team episode on Monday (Sept. 8), which found the Bronx native reflecting on how his feuds with fellow NYC titans 50 Cent and Jay-Z cost him deals with Air Jordan and Reebok in the mid-2000s.

“I was the first rapper with a Jordan sneaker, not only that, designed by Michael Jordan. Seven meetings, they had the whole sneaker,” he said of the potential Latino-flavored sneaker. “Then that s—t happened at the MTV Awards.”

Joe took a shot at 50 and G-Unit during the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. “I’d like to tell the people home I feel so safe tonight with all this police protection courtesty of G-Unit,” he said on stage. 50 retaliated during the G-Unit performance later that night, calling Joe a “p—y.”

Joe said on Sneaker Shopping that he had a show in Jamaica the next day and received the disappointing phone call from a Jordan executive, who allegedly canned the collaboration. “‘Yo, Big Joe, you know, I’m not with controversy. Maybe we look at this in the future,’” the rapper said the exec told him.

Complex confirmed that there was a Fat Joe x Air Jordan shoe in the works, which was a retro Air Jordan 4.

Fat Joe also remembered having a seven-figure deal with Reebok in the works, where 50 and Jay-Z were signed, but that deal also allegedly fell through after Reebok executives were made aware of the Terror Squad rapper’s beef with Hov.

“Reebok had approached me and was like, ‘Yo, we want to do a sneaker with you for millions.’ I caught the squeeze play because Hov was over there and 50 Cent,” he said. “They shut it down. They was just like, ‘Yo, we won’t do business with you if you give this guy a sneaker.’ That’s part of the karma. It’s part of the ins and outs. I’ve done it to other guys. It came back to me.”

Billboard has reached out to Jay-Z and 50 Cent for comment.

Joe previously took a shot at Jay on his “Lean Back” anthem, and then, more than a decade later, the duo officially squashed their beef when posing together for a photo at Beyoncé’s Formation Tour, which led to Jay hopping on the “All the Way Up” remix.

Watch the full episode below.