See Why 50 Cent’s Notorious B.I.G. Mansion Sold For Only $2.9 Million

It seemed destined at the time. His moniker is 50 Cent. The address is 50 Poplar Hill Drive. The colossal house is 50,000 square feet. It boasts 50+ rooms. The lucky numbers all added up.

Until they didn’t. After more than a decade, rapper-actor-TV producer 50 Cent finally sold his suburban Connecticut mansion (a monument of success, excess and regress) at a loss for $2.9 million—84% less than his initial ask, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The hip hop superstar (birth name Curtis Jackson) doggedly pursued the sale of his decadent Farmington home, as it languished on and off the market for 12 years—especially during his highly publicized Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing years ago.

In 2003, the Grammy Award winner bought the home from the ex-wife of former champion boxer Mike Tyson for $4.1 million (still a town record), following his tour de force album Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Tyson’s pet Bengal tiger wasn’t included in the deal but a real estate Hangover was.

Unfortunately for 50 Cent, the home’s value did not appreciate. In 2007, it listed for $18.5 million. By 2018, the price was slashed to just under $5 million, even listing with Million Dollar Listing New York’s celebrity agent Fredrik Eklund. It made an appearance on the rental market for $100,000 per month as well.

This house was a harder sell than “Candy Shop.” Was the 52-room mansion’s sale jinxed by its infamous reputation? Maybe. Were stripper poles, gun-toting gangsta murals and the monumental cathedral atrium excessive? Yes. Was the marbleized mansion too customized to the rapper’s extravagant taste? Definitely. It’s not hard to live large here. But truth is, the notorious mega-mansion was controversial before “Fiddy” ever crossed the threshold—cited in the Hartford Courant as “the most notorious house in Connecticut.”

The enormous estate was built in 1985 for Benjamin Sisti, founder of failed Colonial Realty Co., who was convicted a decade later in a fraud case. At the time, the mansion was viewed as a monstrosity—five times as large as the next house in Farmington. Since the 1980s, it had become a neighborhood symbol of excess, greed, corruption, and alleged debauchery.

“It’s the largest house in the northeast,” says Douglas Elliman’s Jennifer Leahy, who brokered the deal. “There is a full state-of-the art night club with a casino room, two-billiards room, basketball court, recording studio and indoor pool. Outside there is a pool and grotto, a full basketball court, a pond fully stocked with koi, and pond house plus a helipad.”

According to reports, 50 Cent invested at least $6 million renovating the 25-bedroom, 19-bathroom mansion. Keep in mind, he’s single—though he does have scores of famous friends. Over the years, various listings have hyped the master bedroom loft, home theater, “G-Unit” conference room, two pools, two basketball courts, and the disco (“Club TKO”) where the rapper partied “In Da Club”.

The rapper dropped more than $100,000 just on the club’s audio-visual set up which surrounds the dance floor stage—beneath the towering marble atrium. Outdoors, the 17-acre grounds also offer a guesthouses, mountain views, waterfalls, bridges, and landscaped gardens.

Despite taking a loss, 50 Cent is okay. While his “Piggy Bank” isn’t as full as it once was, the prolific entertainer still lives comfortably with a lucrative back music catalog and a successful career as a writer, producer and actor on Starz’s crime drama series Power. As a boss, power is something he’s familiar with, with or without his Farmington mansion. He never lost that.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.