50 Cent Explains BET Awards Mishap: 'I Just Wasn't Concentrating'

[Damien J.]

One way or another, 50 Cent makes sure the world talking about him — especially after his performance at the BET Awards on Tuesday night.

Fif performed "Amusement Park" during the live broadcast after an online contest allowed fans to pick between him doing that track or his "Straight to the Bank."

But the G-Unit leader's appearance was more memorable because he skipped the entire first verse of the song and instead traveled into the crowd, giving out pounds to some of his peers.

Speculation raged on blogs and message boards over just what the snag was all about: Did 50 go off-script to show off? Did he forget the words to his own song when the teleprompter didn't cue properly? Was he lip-synching?

Yesterday, however, 50 appeared on BET's "106 & Park" to explain.

He said he was almost knocked off of the platform he'd entered on as he descended to the stage from the Shrine Auditorium's upper reaches. According to him, the accidental bump (from a dancer on a trapeze) threw off his focus.

"When I prepared the performance, we went through the run-through and it just went totally different from what I actually got the chance to do," he said. "It's a disappointment, but I'll get a chance to do it again, so I'll feel good about it. But just, when I went through the run-through — we got some footage that we can show you — you see me come out from under there with no problem, without actually being hit by the aerialist. I'm like 25 feet in the air at that point. And later on when you see the actual show, it wasn't planned for me to take my hat off or take my jacket off.

"Everything doesn't quite happen the way you practice it," he continued. "You see, I was hit by the aerialist and I was wibbly-wobbling coming down. Twenty five feet in the air, man, you fall — can't nobody help me with that, you know what I mean? Then by the time you get down, you try and regroup to fight, you got the pyro going off, the music starts, we four bars into the song, you know — I just wasn't concentrating."

Fif later noted he instinctively entered the crowd after the mishap to keep the performance going and to save face.

"I snapped into survivor mode, baby!" he said, joking.

After the interview, he then made up for his BET Awards performance by taking the 106 stage and running through "Amusement Park" without a hitch.

Meanwhile, 50 continues to gear up for the September 4 release of his Curtis album. On Saturday, he shot the video for a remix of "Straight to the Bank," which a representative for his record label, Interscope, claimed to have no knowledge of. But then again, 50 has been known to do a few things on his own, such as the recent YouTube videos for "Funeral Music" and "Hold On."

An official video for "Follow My Lead," featuring Robin Thicke, was also filmed several weeks ago, but has since been shelved. Reps for Interscope explained that 50's next official single will be a record formerly called "Ayo Technology" that features Justin Timberlake and Timbaland. The record is now called "She Want It" and a video will be in production shortly.

This report is provided by MTV News