♪ >> i'm 50 cent. that's right. 50 cent, businessman, author, humanitarian, and bathe of music as well. a story of success that can only happen in america. tonight, the bad boy rapper who is actually not so bad. you have never taken drugs? >> no, the easy option is you can take $10 or $5 and you can spend it on buying weed to smoke it or put it in your pocket. and what kim kardashian's mother told me about her daughter's troubled marriage. apparently the marriage is over already. >> don't tell me that, no. >> wait till you hear what else she had to tell me. this is "piers morgan tonight." bernie madoff went to prison on july 14th, 2009 to begin serving 150 years for masterminding the biggest ponzi scheme in history. two years later members of the family are finally speaking out. joining me is catherine hooper, andrew madoff's fiancee and the author of "truth and consequences, life inside the madoff family." how are you reacting to all the he action? how do you think the interviews you've done so far is all going down? >> well, certainly, i expected the book to make quite a big splash. i mean, this is a story that people have been avidly following since it broke in 2008. people have been waiting to hear from the family. >> catherine, i mean, for you, it's obviously -- it's a difficult situation. i'm aware that, for example, you're the only person who is going to be personally profiting from this book. now there are many people saying, hang on a second, how can you be allowed to profit from such horrendous crimes? what do you say to that? >> i understand that completely. the fact of the matter is andrew, because of his legal situation, and i, we can't get married. we likely never will be able to be married. and i'm a single mother. i have a 6-year-old daughter who i support. and to take the time away from my career to work on this project and invest the mund hundreds of hours of work with laurie that it took, i had to be compensated for that time. >> from andrew's interviews is not that i didn't believe it because i didn't know enough about what was going on there, although many people do doubt what he's saying, as i'm sure you're aware and others have sympathy for him, but in relation to the question he didn't answer which is how much money do you guys actually have, because i guess the sympathy that you may get from the public as to making money from this book would depend on exactly how impoverished you are. >> well, andrew's assets and mine are not the same, as you know. and andrew's finances are a matter of public record. all of his financial life is written about in court documents that anyone can read. and he's being sued for a high multiple of his net worth. so our picture is very uncertain. but money is not what was most important about this project for us. we worked on this book, and i undertook this book because i had a mission. >> and what was the mission? >> well, the mission is to have the ability to tell our story in our own words, and to be able to broker a reconciliation between andrew and his mother, and also to offer a story about our lives that hopefully tells many people that you can have a healing experience through telling your own story. >> the reason i'm continuing to press on this is i found it odd that andrew who -- you know, gave a very moving interview, but he wouldn't answer the question about how much money he's got. and even when i asked catherine then, she wouldn't answer either. you can find it out in documents. but obviously you know the answer, you both know the answer to that question. is it easier to say andrew has, as some people say, $60 million, and then when people have that picture in their head of that sum of money, they can assess whether they believe it is ethically or morally right for you guys to profit or catherine in particular, to personally profit further from telling the story of bernie madoff's crimes? >> i don't feel that catherine and andrew have been hiding anything. i mean, as they both stated, these numbers are widely available to the public. i can understand why the public would want to hear a number out of andrew or catherine's mouth, but you know, i mean, you could say your mother tells you to never discuss these financial things and this is all out in the public, and it's no secret and andrew has been incredibly open and cooperative since the beginning. >> well, i don't mean to be funny, but then how much is it? if it's not a secret and they're so open and public and everyone appears to know apart from me, why don't you just tell me? >> i mean, this is -- i think -- >> to be honest, i actually don't know the answer. i think anyone who is being sued for $60 million has a very uncertain financial future. keep in mind that that figure is not the amount of money that andrew is alleged to have. it's the entire amount of money that he's alleged to have earned over his entire lifetime. >> but catherine, do you know how much, for example, of that money came from the dodgy side of bernie madoff's business? in other words, how much money came from the ponzi scheme to be invested or be used in andrew's -- apparently the end of the business. >> the money that andrew earned in his career is what represents his net worth and that's what he's being sued for. i can't speak to the other pieces of the case because i'm not a legal expert. but i'm sorry i'm not able to give you a better informed answer about that. >> i just think it would be easy for you. there will be people who are absolutely fine with you doing the book and making money and there will be lots of people, particularly i imagine relatives of bernie madoffs victims who will be seething with anger -- >> right. but when you talk about bernie madoff's victims, please keep in mind that you're talking about people that are close friends of mine, people that i spend holidays with, and many of the people who sent wonderful letters of love and support today as we were working on this project and at the fruition of the project. so the victims are not a bunch of faceless people to us. they're the people that are closest to us. i've heard from many of them. and from the ones i don't know, i certainly understand their questions about that issue. i know -- >> catherine, did you believe what ruth madoff was saying in her interview? >> which piece of it? >> well, the general thrust of it? i mean, do you find her a credible witness? because i'm not sure that i did. >> oh, i find her very credible. she has been so despised by the public, and at the end of the day, she's a 70-year-old woman who has lost her son. she found out very late in life that the only man she ever loved had been lying to her for decades. it's crushing what she's been through. and i have nothing but empathy for her. i can understand for someone who never met her or only seeing her on television for a few minutes might not understand what she's been through, but i have incredible empathy for her. >> this is the biggest ponzi scheme in history. bernie madoff, he simply couldn't have carried this off on his own. andrew and his brother mark, who so tragically took his own life, were working in the same building just a floor away from their father for all these years but apparently knew nothing about it, nor did his wife who had been with him 50 years. nobody appears to have known anything about this. he was running this multibillion dollar scam. >> mm-hmm. well, piers, this is something that i very carefully went through in the book. i mean, i did not come into this thinking that andrew was not involved in his father's scheme. like everyone else, i thought any day he's going to be taken away in handcuffs. that was how i came into this project. it was after dozens of hours of interviews it became clear to me that he had no knowledge of his father's crimes. there were a number of factors and one is that the fact that many of the people are either in jail or awaiting trial who were accomplices in bernie's scheme would have had every reason to turn in one of the brothers or ruth and get a reduction in their own sentence. they didn't do so because they weren't able to. >> catherine, just reading the book, bernie madoff emerges as a pretty revolting character even before the balloon goes up on his scam. the way that he treats you, the way he talks to you. there's enough in there for me to think horrible piece of work. >> yep. and i can tell you that when you fall in love with someone, you take your in-laws, all of us have in-laws, it was not going to be the easiest prospective father-in-law, but at that time he seemed merely creepy and not like a criminal. >> do you think that andrew will ever speak to his father again? i know he said he won't. do you think he's resolute that he would talk to him again? >> i cannot imagine that he would. he feels so betrayed and so devastated not only for himself but for his children who will have that name for the rest of their lives and have the questions that go along with it. so for andrew, it's a matter of principle. he will not forgive his father and he'll never speak to him again. >> catherine, thank you for the time. i wish you luck in the future. obviously, more luck than you've unfortunately had to endure. my advice would be, i'd rethink this money thing. i'd give the profits to a children's charity or something. then i think you may get more sympathy. maybe you and laurie would think about that. >> you're entitled to your opinion. thank you very much, piers. >> appreciate your time. thank you. now i want to turn to the other big story in the news tonight, that's republican presidential candidate herman cain who says he's been, quote, falsely accused of sexually suggestive behavior to two former employees of the restaurant association when he headed that group in the '90s. he called the accusations a witch hunt. he had striking things to say about this show. i interviewed him a week and a half ago in las vegas. and he can accuse this show of taking remarks out of context. that didn't happen. to prove it, i want to replay what herman cain said in that interview about abortion. what's your view of abortion? >> i believe that life begins at conception. and abortion under no circumstances. and here's why. >> no circumstances? >> no circumstances. >> because many of your fellow candidates or some of them qualify that. >> they qualify, but -- >> rape and incest. >> rape and incest. >> a tricky question, i know. >> it's a tricky question. >> but you've had children, grandchildren. >> yes, yes. >> if one of your female children, grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own? >> you're mixing two things here, piers. >> why? >> you're mixing two things here. >> that's what it comes down to. >> it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. secondly, if you look at the statistical incidence, you're not talking about that big a number. so what i'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make, not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. it gets down to that family. and whatever they decide they decide. i shouldn't try to tell them what decision to make. >> so there you have it. herman cain in his own words, pro life and pro choice. mr. cain, you're welcome to come back on this show any time to address this rather confusing issue or any other issue for that matter. just don't say that we have edited you unfairly when we haven't. later on the show, what chris jenner says about her daughter kim kardashian's troubled marriage. and when we come back, from the mean streets to rap superstardom. this surprisingly squeaky clean 50 cent. fix it or find a new job, all right? i got it, i'm sorry. these people, huh? you know i've found that anger is the enemy of instruction. you don't know the egos that i have to deal with. you're probably right. thank you! whoever you are. i'm pretty sure that was phil jackson. he's quite famous... million championships... triangle offense innovator... [ male announcer ] the audi a8. named best large luxury sedan. nice wheels zen master. thank you...todd. ♪ 50 cent, how are you? >> i'm great. >> i would have thought by now with all this economic recession, you may have changed your name to a quarter or something. >> going down, going down. >> with all the money you're making up these days, maybe up to a dollar? >> i'm doing pretty good. i'm comfortable. now i focus more on trying to create ventures and projects where i'm actually giving back. >> let's see, you're fascinating. i interviewed you before for "gq" magazine. you had this reputation of this rough, tough, bad boy rapper that would potentially kill me at any point during the interview. and you're a serious minded businessman. >> right. >> people know the incredible story of the vitamin water. vitamins, as you like to call it, where you made a lot of money from that kind of deal and you had from other deals. you've become a very successful american businessman. is that something that, given your background, given where you came from, how do you feel about this? you're very proud of what you've achieved? >> absolutely. a huge accomplishment. allows me to be influential to my peers and other entrepreneurs. when i take on the projects particularly this project has a charitable component connected to it where it's one for one. with every piece of product that's sold through street king energy, there's a meal being provided through the united nations program. >> it's a really good one. i'm going to come to that later as several other things that you're doing. you're a man of many talents now. >> yeah. >> take me back, though, to where it all started for you. because i think the core of what you're all about, what drives and motivates you i think goes back to your upbringing. >> absolutely. >> tell me where you were brought up? >> i was brought up in south jamaica queens. my mom was killed when i was 8. i had was forced to live about my grandparents at that point. >> your father disappeared. >> he played no part in my life. >> do you have any desire to? >> not now. i feel like my son now is a better version of me. >> has your father ever tried to contact you? >> no. >> now that you're famous? >> and i'm grateful for that. >> are you curious about what kind of man he was? >> well, it wasn't a whole lot of positive things around in the environment. so i'm not sure who my mom could have interacted with that would have been more influential in a positive way for me at that point. and now i look at it like being an adult, that the mistakes that i made like -- i'm around my son and he does things and he feels like he's doing it for the first time. i don't know if it's genetics. >> he's lucky. i'll come to him as well later in the sense that he's not having to grow up in the environment that you did. >> right. to say you had it tough is to put it mildly. you were left without a parent at 8. at 12 you were dealing drugs on the streets. >> right. >> because that was the only way to survive. the interesting thing again about you, which i found surprising -- i don't want to insult you by saying that, but i remember asking you how many drugs have you taken? >> right. and i don't actually use drugs. >> you have never taken drugs? >> no, it was an easy option. you can take $10 or $5 that you spent on buying weed to smoke it or put it in your pocket. my motivation at that point, it wasn't like i was making the decision to do it with the comfort of having things just around me at excess. there weren't things around. >> most people of your peer group at the time would have been taking drugs. it showed a self-discipline which is odd in a boy of that age. >> and i got to see a lot of -- my grandmother was -- so i got a chance to watch my mothers sisters and brothers at different periods experiment with the usage of drugs and alcohol. >> did you ever touch alcohol? >> i still responded so differently from it that i stayed away. >> you've never taken drugs, never had alcohol. >> i've drunk before. >> but not much. >> yeah. i had the experience that made me like paranoid because of it. and i stayed away from it following that. >> smoke? >> no. >> i mean, you're one of the squeakiest cleanest men i've ever met. >> but my first record when i put it out, i said i smoked that gush, and i said it because i knew that the rest of my story and my experience would speak to that. that people would identify with it and say, oh, well, yeah, i guess he would have tried that, too. because everyone around me had tried it. i know myself a little enough to know that i'm an extremist on some levels. i feel like if i get high, i'll get really high. i may not come back down. >> many of your competitors have done all that stuff and carry on doing all that stuff. >> in the actual music video they're going to show you the bottles, they're going to show you the party, the nightlife. when music is played, it's usually a comfortable place for alcohol to be consumed, the bar, the sports bar, the nightclub, it's an easy marriage, it makes sense because of the nightclub environment but -- >> as a young man, when you were trying to get out of this world that you were in. >> right. >> what was your dream then? what was the holy grail for you or the end of all this? >> even when i was standing on the corner i was standing there with an entrepreneur spirit. i was just standing there because there was no opportunity ors options for me in the early stage. like i was 12. so there was no blue card for working papers. there was no temporary -- if i was going to mow someone's lawn and you can do that once every two weeks, the income off of that wouldn't be enough to make a change. and what you actually wanted -- what i wanted at that point -- i had a lot of negative influences in front of me. i had people who were successful hustling. cadillacs and bonnevilles and regales right in front of me that seemed like it was -- there were no requirements, to be a part of that actual lifestyle. everyone that was eligible to be a part of it. >> did you not aspire to be one of them? what was the badge of honor, if you like, to have the cadillac, to be that guy on the street? >> i mean, imsymbolizes success to people who are small minded this thinking and limited exposure to information. >> when you see young kids these days in america, if you go back to queens or whatever and you see people like you were. >> right. >> hanging on the streets, maybe causing trouble, whatever, in a gang, whatever. what do you say to them? because i always imagined that whatever you say to them carries -- >> it impacts harder. >> -- more weight than a middle class white politician pretending he knows what their lives are like. >> i don't pretend in conversation when i talk to them. i tell them that it's the right idea with the wrong direction. they do the same things over and over. to have the exact same behave yors and expect a different outcome is the definition of insanity. >> do you think you now have in america the first black president. >> right. >> must have been a big moment for you as a black american. what did you feel that day when barack obama became president? >> i think it was the same for everyone. it shows how far as a whole america's come. you know? >> do you believe it has? or do you believe that everybody thought it had? i mean, quite a few people have said to me over this desk since that there's almost -- it feels like there's more racism now because of barack obama becoming president? >> well, yeah, on some levels. me, ways an advocate for hillary, i was a supporter for hillary because i wasn't sure that america was ready for an african-american president. i didn't know what could happen in the process, because it could have been a mess to have something hap