Fat Joe Is Being Sued for a Ton of Money Which Could Take a Chunk out of His Net Worth

In December 2024, Fat Joe appeared on the Jazzys World TV YouTube channel to chat with the young host about hip-hop, his career, and his advocacy work. When asked about health care reform, Fat Joe immediately began talking about the high cost of staying healthy in the United States. "It's something I'm passionate about," he said, "because I've heard stories of people being denied coverage or medicine." He's fighting for health care cost transparency.

He switched gears a bit and began discussing corruption and greed, and the ways in which having money can change people. "Sometimes they do the most unethical things, immoral things, for money, " said Fat Joe. "It's a very ugly part of the whole world." If anyone knows what it's like to go from nothing to wealthy, it's Fat Joe. Let's take a look at his net worth.

Although Fat Joe has been in the music industry since the early 1990s, Celebrity Net Worth reports he has a net worth of $4 million. According to a November 1996 profile in The New York Times, Fat Joe grew up in a housing project in the Bronx. His family was on welfare, but he was surrounded by other neighborhood hip-hop artists who challenged each other to sound clashes outside of their apartment.

He was only able to break into the music company after winning Apollo Theater's amateur night four times in a row and getting a deejay from WQHT-FM (98.7) to play his demo. After that, a record exec signed the portly performer to Relativity Records. Relativity did a terrible job of promoting Fat Joe, so in 1996, he made the jump to Atlantic Records. Fat Joe also got his own music label: Terror Squad Entertainment.

After suffering a few losses in his personal life, Fat Joe fell into a depression, which led to excessive drinking to numb the pain. Fat Joe's wife urged him to get help in therapy, which facilitated the release of his fourth studio album in December 2001. He would go on to release seven more studio albums, two collaborative albums, three mixtapes, and 22 singles.

The rapper opened up a sneaker store with 50 Cent in Harlem, which has expanded to three locations total. According to People, in November 2023, Fat Joe teamed up with It's a 10 haircare to create Rewind 10, an at-home beard and hair coloring collection for men. Two years later, Fat Joe reunited with Jadakiss to launch a music, culture, and sports podcast, per Billboard.

In June 2025, Fat Joe's former hypeman filed a $20 million lawsuit against his old boss, per Variety. Terrance “T.A.” Dixon alleges that Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Antonio Cartagena, engaged in "coercive labor exploitation, financial fraud, sexual manipulation, violent intimidation, and psychological coercion."

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, and alleges that Cartagena forced Dixon "into humiliating situations, including sex acts performed under duress and surveillance, accompanied by threats of abandonment in foreign countries if [he] refused compliance." Dixon also alleges that Cartegena engaged in sexual acts with minors, including one 16-year-old, who was given "cash, clothing, and payment of her cell phone bill," in exchange for sex.

There are other more disturbing allegations that involve minors as young as 15. Cartagena hired criminal defense attorney Joe Tacopina, who said in a statement that Dixon is retaliating against a civil suit they filed against him first, which allegedly exposed a "coordinated scheme to extort Mr. Cartagena through lies, threats, and manufactured allegations."