50 Cent (also known as Curtis Jackson) is in the middle of a messy litigation with Larry Johnson, an author who claims that the plot behind the STARZ drama Power was stolen directly from his manuscript for a book Tribulation of a Ghetto Kid.

According to Johnson, he sent a finished manuscript for Tribulation to an employee at G-Unit Books, which is a company owned by Jackson.  Apparently, they passed on it and the book was released by a different company.  However, Johnson strongly believes that 50 Cent must have read the manuscript himself, because many elements in Power are strikingly similar to his work.

As a matter of fact, Johnson says it’s a carbon copy of his manuscript and is suing STARZ and the Power team for $200 million. According to the author, in his book the primary character has a goatee just like the character of ‘Ghost’ in Power and Johnson says he even uses the nickname ‘Ghost’ as his pen name.

But 50 Cent is no longer tolerating these accusations.  Instead he has requested to put an immediate stop to the lawsuit stating that he never even saw the Tribulation manuscript and that the two projects are essentially not alike, at all.  “Plaintiffs describe the purported similarities betweenTribulation and Power at such an abstract level of generality that Plaintiffs’ work arguably would be similar to almost every other television series or film involving big-city violence and drug dealing,” the legal motion asserts. "Other than the fact that both works involve an African-American protagonist, they bear no similarities beyond the generalized theme of a crime drama and stock creative elements that flow from this most basic of premises."

The next hearing for the suit takes place this August in Los Angeles, California.

Power airs on Sundays at 9pm ET on STARZ.

Watch the Preview For Power Season 4, Episode 6:

 

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