Rapper 50 Cent has had his tattoos removed from his arms after they became difficult to cover up on movies.

The 32-year-old, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, said he had the body art taken off so that he didn’t have to spend hours on film sets having make-up applied to disguise them.

He said: “I took ‘em off. I’ve been on a few acting projects and they have been making me get up… My call time is four hours before the regular acting talent because of the tattoos.

“I’ve got a project I’m supposed to be doing with Nicolas Cage, called The Dance, it’s a boxing film… it’s like my passion project and… when you’re a fighter you’re sweating [and] with a whole bunch of make-up on and stuff like that, it doesn’t look real to me.”

However there is one tattoo that he just won’t remove. He added: “I kept my back piece. I can’t take that off.”