Die-hard 50 Cent fans won't recognize the rap superstar in a new photo that has surfaced in US Weekly.

The normally buff and chiseled G-Unit head lost 54 pounds for a role in Things Fall Apart, a movie he wrote and stars in, about a promising college football player who gets cancer.

"I was starving," the 6-foot artist, who reduced his weight from 214 pounds to 160, told the magazine. To lose the weight, 50 walked three hours a day on a treadmill for nine weeks and lived on a liquid diet.

When the shocking photo hit the web, some speculated that he was sick, but a longtime spokesperson said that was not the case.

"I can confirm that he is indeed okay," the spokesperson told Yahoo! Music.

Clearly, the rapper born Curtis Jackson takes his acting just as seriously as his music. He recently discussed having some of his tattoos surgically removed because it affected his film career, requiring him to be on set for several additional hours each day for extra makeup.

He has multiple films in preproduction, and previously appeared in Get Rich Or Die Tryin', Home Of The Brave, and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Things Fall Apart costars Ray Liotta, Lynn Whitfield, and Mario Van Peebles, who also served as director.

lol @ topic
lets hope he get an oscar or a box office smash for it.

Amen

The dude really looks siccccccckkkkkkkkkk I really hope its all acting cos it looks too real for one to conclude that it is.

Men for all it's worth, he ghast win something for this, did you see his pix, the guy looked like one starving african