50 Cent doesn't regret being a pre-teen crack dealer.

The "Candy Shop" rapper started selling drugs in Queens, New York, after his mother – also a dealer – was murdered.

He was just 12 years old, and would tell his grandmother he was at an after-school club while he roamed the streets pushing narcotics.

The musician – real name Curtis Jackson – explained: "If there was another option that made sense to me at that time period, I would have taken it. But I made my choices at an age where there was an innocence involved. I identify with it being the wrong choice now, but you can't regret that you made it."

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50 quit drug dealing in 2000, but an old "crack feud" came back to haunt him a few months later when he was shot nine times at close range. He sustained injuries to his hand, arm, hip, chest, legs and cheek, but eventually fully recovered.

The hip-hop star now sees the shooting as a "transformational moment" that made him into the strong person he is today. He explained: "When you get hurt as bad as I was hurt when I was shot, either fear consumes you, or you become insensitive."

"Things that happened to me after that started to matter a lot less. Whatever else happens is just not a big deal."