50 Cent is not afraid to court controversy for any of his projects, but was this latest bit of controversy really justified?

Here's the scoop. A few days ago, 50 Cent -- real name Curtis Jackson -- posted a photo with model/actress Sally Ferreira, a Dominican-American beauty who has appeared in a number of TV shows, movies, and photoshoots. According to VladTV, the photo was taken behind the scenes of the rapper's latest video (though it wasn't clear which video it was for, or when the video would air). Sally, in turn, reposted the photo with the caption "selfie."

Subsequently, as many hip hop media outlets like to do when a rapper of 50 Cent's caliber posts something on a social media site, they ran with it, and in an effort to get hits, twisted it slightly for controversy.

Everyone from Hip-Hop Weekly to MStarz posted that the In Da Club rapper was "dating" Sally -- who has been in a committed relationship with filmmaker Omar Ramirez for many years -- causing the photos to go viral.

The next day, according to Hot New Hip-Hop, 50 claimed that Sally was the one who "sold" the photos to Media Takeout for her own purposes and called her out by name on Instagram. He posted a picture of the model with the caption "Big FAIL, super thirsty, new shoot this week coming. Unbelievable #smsaudio #Animal Ambition." He posted further warnings on the photo of the model: "WARNING: Do not attempt to work with this thirsty video b*tch. She sent photos of the shoot to Media Takeout, claiming I'm in a relationship with her. Can anyone say reshoot?"

This caused a firestorm of hate to be hurled Sally's way. Fans of the rapper took to Instagram and Twitter to call Sally a "hoe," poking fun at her and claiming she engineered the publicity for her own ends. The comments on VladTV's subsequent post show just how out of hand the situation became.

In response, Sally took to her Instagram to deny the allegations and thanked her friends and family for rallying around her during this difficult time. She also stated that she was committed to getting "the truth" about the situation out there, and that she and her team were taking the "mature" route to pursue the "false and hurtful" allegations made against her. 50 Cent, for his part, commendably took down the vitriolic post against the model.

In Sally's defense, it seems logical that this was a case of one media outlet (although it's unclear which ) picking up a photo from a celebrity's Instagram, twisting it to their own ends to get their "clicks" and their money, causing the story to go viral unchecked and unverified. The wannabe small urban media outlets that struggle to compete with major outlets like The Source, XXL, Vibe, MTV, and Hip-Hop Wired are also to blame. It's proper journalism to verify a story before it runs lest the outlet be at the receiving end of a lawsuit for libel. And, thanks to the misogynist nature of the music industry and hip-hop industry in particular, this same model/actress came to be at the receiving end of vile, hateful names.

At the end of the day, Sally, and other victims of social media abuse can be someone's daughter, wife, sister, aunt, friend, or sole reason for being alive. There is this worship of the cult of celebrity -- and money. In today's world, being "respected" becomes secondary to Instagram likes, being "honorable" often falls second to Twitter retweets and being "honest" is traded in for being "popular."

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