Ja Rule is opening up about his time behind bars for tax evasion.
The rapper recently appeared on Earn Your Leisure, where he discussed the financial decisions that eventually led to him serving two years in federal prison in 2011.
“I did my state time for the gun charge, and then as soon as I got released, the feds came and got me for failure to file taxes,” he said around the one-hour, five-minute mark of the video below. “I was doing some crazy shit. I didn’t understand money at the time.”
Ja Rule went on to explain that the way he accepted payments for performances contributed to him failing to report earnings to the IRS.
“I would do shit like, ‘Yo, you’re giving me $250,000 for the show. Bet. Give me $50,000 in cash and send the other $200,000 to the shit,’” he recalled.
“In my mind, that 50 is free cash. I don’t know why I thought that. I just thought if you gave it to me in cash, it ain’t on the books. And so I did that to the tune of $3 million fucking dollars,” Rule added.
When asked how authorities found out about the situation, Ja Rule admitted he wasn’t completely sure. However, he shared his own theory about what may have happened.
“I think when the federal case and all that shit happened, they started poking around,” he explained, adding that investigators may have wondered, “What else can we get this guy for. This guy made all of this money, but he didn’t report this money. What’s going on over here?”
Although that chapter of his life was difficult, Ja Rule has been enjoying a much brighter period in recent years. Earlier this year, the rapper celebrated turning 50 by dancing on a bar in Las Vegas while vibing to Pretty Ricky’s “On the Hotline.”
