Rick Ross has a message for 50 Cent and everybody in his DMs asking about his Wingstop empire: he is still a lemon pepper stepper, but these days his money is in the stock.
Video:
The conversation about Rick Ross’s Wingstop locations took off this week after investor Eric Jackson went through nine years of Wingstop’s state franchise filings. Jackson says the Boss Wings companies run by Ross’s family listed 21 open restaurants at the end of 2016. By the end of 2025, he says, the filings showed just one, in Ross’s hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi.
50 Cent was not about to let that one slide. He reposted an old podcast clip of Ross, and the internet ran with it from there.
Ross answered with a video of his own. “My friends in my DM want to know if I’m still a lemon pepper stepper. Of course I am,” he said. I love Wingstop. Always will.”
Then he explained where the restaurants went. “My game went from more franchising to stocks,” Ross said. “I was down with Wingstop before stocks.”
He did not deny the store count. He did not say Jackson’s numbers were wrong. He said the stock market was the bigger play.
“A franchise is an amazing experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Ross said. “But the stock game is a whole nother game. And the way I went into the stocks, you could have 200 franchises and not play at that level.”
Ross did not say how much Wingstop stock he owns or when he bought in.
Rick Ross has been tied to the chain since he name dropped its lemon pepper wings on his 2010 song “MC Hammer.” He opened his first location in Memphis in 2011, and the family business grew from there, with his mother and sister helping run the stores. In 2022, the Department of Labor found Boss Wings illegally deducted the cost of uniforms, training and background checks from workers’ pay at five Mississippi locations, and the company paid more than $114,000 in back wages and penalties. That same year, Wingstop said Boss Wings had handed its Memphis stores to a new operator.
Jackson’s review only covers the Boss Wings companies, so it does not account for any other Wingstop interests Ross or his family may hold.
As for the fans, Ross still has the same order for them. “Go get them lemon peppers,” he said.
