50 Cent Apologizes To Airport Worker With Autism After Posting Instagram Video Accusing Him Of Being High
Rapper 50 Cent issued an apology after mocking Andrew Farrell, a young man with autism, who was working Sunday at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. The rapper took a video of Farrell and posted it to Instagram, accusing him of being high on drugs while at work. After learning about Farrell’s development disability, Fiddy issued a mea culpa.
“While the incident at the airport resulted from an unfortunate misunderstanding, I am truly sorry for offending the young man,” the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, told Page Six in a statement Tuesday. “It was certainly not my intent to insult him or the disability community, which is a source of great strength in America. I have apologized personally to him and his family.”
50 Cent upset the internet when he made fun of Farrell, who works at the airport as a janitor. In the video, which has now been deleted from the rapper’s Instagram page, 50 Cent approaches Farrell and asks him his name. Farrell shakes his head and refuses to respond, which leads to rapper to accuse Farrell of being "high as a mother-----" and saying his pupils were "dilated and everything."
But Farrell wasn’t high. He has autism and suffers from social anxiety and a hearing impairment, his father told the New York Daily News on Tuesday. "I was pushing my cart and I'd just started work and basically was minding my own business," Farrell told the website. He didn’t know who the rapper was.
Farrell's mother, Amanda Kramer, wanted people to know her son is a hard worker who graduated from high school in 2015 and does not do drugs. “Everything [50 Cent] said about him is not true. He gets up. He goes to work. He does his job. He goes home. He doesn't bother anybody," she told the Cincinnati Enquirer on Tuesday. "I want people to know that he's a good kid. He doesn't get in trouble. He's not a drug addict."
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