Idolator

Artist: 50 Cent
Project: A $400 million windfall from the sale of Glacéau, the company that makes the punch-with-a-kick beverage line Vitamin Water, which counts the 50-branded "Formula 50" among its flavors.
First mention: Coca-Cola announced that it had bought Glacéau for $4.1 billion dollars broke on Friday—the same day the news that 50's forthcoming album Curtis had been pushed back to September (from its original July release date) hit the blogs.
The Build-Up: Shortly after the Curtis news broke, a 50-related item on AllHipHop appeared, and it contained a claim that 50 had little reason to worry; even though his tired sex metaphors weren't catching on with audiences, he was still going to make a lot of money—50 apparently owned a 10% stake in the company, and that he would net a cool $400 million from the deal. The news got picked up by a bunch of news agencies, and news of Curtis' woes seemed less important in the purplish-tinted light of this huge payday.

The Dam-Break: Playahata cocked an eyebrow at this news and rang up Glacéau, who wouldn't confirm or deny 50's stake in the comapny; ProHipHop theorized that the leaking of this news was likely a public relations move that preyed on a somewhat gullible media outlet, a theory that makes sense, given the other bad news 50 had to withstand Friday. Meanwhile, the not-very-reliable gossip site MediaTakeOut claimed to have an interview with an investment banker that called the idea that 50 had a 10% stake "pure fiction."
Odds Of Truthfulness: 15-1. We're sure 50 got a payday from the Glacéau sale, but the "10% stake" figure being thrown around sounds pretty fictional to us, too. The only news we've seen of a Vitamin Water-flavored celebrity windfall that hasn't been attributed to AllHipHop has focused on Mets third baseman/Cassie fan David Wright, whose stake in the company was a mere 0.5%. Well, it's "mere" if you think $20 million is a piddling sum, anyway.

Rumor of 50 Cent's 10% Share in Glaceau Likely PR Move [ProHipHop]