While introducing the acts for the reggaeton performance, Joe joked that the G-Unit brought tons of police with them. Later, during 50’s set, the leader of the G-Unit retaliated by calling Joe a “pu—.”

What the audience at home didn’t see was that during the commercial break before the reggaeton set, 50 got up from his seat and started walking the house, going up in the stands, slapping hands with attendees like Jay-Z and Diddy’s kids and even stood several feet from Joe, leaving everyone bewildered. All this was done moments before Joe was shown on-air. The Terror Squad Don said Fif’s action were blatantly meant to taunt him.

“He’s up in the stands waving at me,” Joe explained. “Then he’s walking around, and when I’m waiting to introduce the reggaeton dudes, he gets on the stage. I’m thinking, ‘OK, we’re about to fight.’ I’m like, ‘We’re about to get it on right here at the VMAs?’ ”

“I said what I said because there’s only so much you can take,” Joe explained. “This guy is jumping onstage and nobody said anything to him. He did ‘Piggy Bank,’ I made my record [‘My 44’] and said I’m out of it. I’m done. Then you have Tony Yayo trying to dis me every chance he gets. 50 is making music videos about me. What am I supposed to do? I have to defend myself. I was trying not to pay them no mind, until he jumped on the stage.”

Ironically, Sunday afternoon at Miami’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 50 said he was done going back and forth with Joe. But he also admitted to pushing Joe’s buttons with “Piggy Bank” last winter.

“Before I put out my record, I knew Fat Joe would respond first,” 50 said of the song. “It’s pride, Latino pride. You can’t escape that.

“I made a two-bar reference on ‘Piggy Bank’ ’cause that’s all I got for him to let him know [my feelings],” 50 added. “Then his [album All or Nothing] comes out and only sells 100,000 copies. It’s obvious he doesn’t generate the interest of the general public, so he doesn’t generate mine either. I just had to let him know. ‘Cause the kid in the schoolyard who doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. It’ll make a coward brave when they see you’re afraid.”

50 was in Miami shooting Olivia’s new video for “So Sexy” and unable to be reached for comment Wednesday (August 31). The G-Unit’s Tony Yayo was on BET’s “106 & Park” on Monday and told host Big Tigger that “50 was having a bad day” and that Fif’s dis of Joe was a retaliatory act. Yayo also explained 50 went into the stands as a way to embrace his fans.