50 Cent Bet $750K Floyd Mayweather Couldn't Read One Page Of A Harry Potter Book

A decade ago, social media was more fun. Instead of getting angry with everything, in 2013, we took part in something called the Ice Bucket Challenge. We filmed ourselves dumping ice water on our heads then challenged friends to do the same and/or donate money to fund ALS research. We ended up raising a lot of money for a good cause and also had a good time.

50 Cent, for his part in the challenge, did things a little differently. He knocked the bucket off a balcony, since that wasn't the focus of the video. Instead, he issued a challenge to boxer Floyd Mayweather: If Floyd could film himself reading one page from a Harry Potter novel, 50 would donate $750,000 to a charity of Mayweather's choice.

If you know nothing about Floyd Mayweather, this sounds like a joke challenge—"I want to give to charity, but let's just have you do something trivial to get you involved too, to loop in your fans and draw even more attention to the cause." In reality, it was a challenge 50 genuinely believed Floyd couldn't manage. Because it appears that Floyd Mayweather can't read, or at least can't read very well.

Which is really his own fault. He doesn't have any kind of learning disability, and even if you make it to adulthood without knowing how to read, you can still totally learn, especially if you have half a billion dollars. Reading is great. It lets you read children's books, or articles online, or (if you're Floyd Mayweather) sentences from your many convictions for battering women.

Extra points for the specificity of 50 Cent's troll: $750,000 sounds like a more serious offer than an even million. Later, Jimmy Kimmel offered to televise the potential reading and make it official, and when Mayweather still didn't seem up for it, 50 eased up the challenge and said Floyd could instead just read The Cat in the Hat. Anyway, 50 Cent's own literacy skills are beyond reproach, as shown by his ability to recite sentences during his wizarding adventure film: