50 Cent started drug dealing because he was too young to get a regular job.

The "Crimewave" rapper became a crack dealer in New York aged just 12, but never took drugs himself because he felt he would become addicted and end up dead.

He said: "I sold drugs and I was in a situation where there weren't many options available to me - I was so young that working wasn't an option so that's when I was dealing, when I was 12."

When asked if he ever experimented with substances himself, the 34-year-old hip-hop star told BANG Showbiz: "No because I'm obsessive. I do things to an extreme. I know this about myself, I'm an extremist.

"I wouldn't get high, I would get extremely f***ing high. I'd probably get so high I probably wouldn't come back if I fell into that kind of space. I know myself enough to know that I got to stay away."

After being arrested for offenses related to drug dealing in 1994 the rapper, aged 19 at the time, avoided between 3 and 9 years in jail by spending seven months stay in a youth "shock incarceration" boot camp in upstate New York.

50 Cent is currently starring in British gangster film "Dead Man Running," and is releasing his album "Before I Self Destruct" next month.