American rapper 50 Cent (real name Curtis Jackson III) says he started dealing crack cocaine at just 12-years-old because he was too young to get a real job.

Despite his criminal activities, the 34-year-old “Get Up” hip-hop star says he was smart enough to not take drugs, as he never wanted to get addicted himself.

“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,” Fiddy told website BANG Showbiz. “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 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 two arrests at age 19, Fiddy managed to avoid jail by a seven-month stint in a youth “shock incarceration” boot camp in upstate New York – experiences he would later rap about in his songs.

These days, Fiddy’s one of the most successful names in the business. Next up for the rapper is his album Before I Self Destruct (due out in November) and a role in the British gangster flick, Dead man Running.