Baring her soul. Cardi B opened up about a shocking sexual assault she experienced on the set of a magazine photo shoot earlier in her career.
The “Bodak Yellow” rapper, 26, got candid about the abuse in an upcoming episode of WE tv’s Untold Stories of Hip Hop. In a preview of the episode, which airs on Thursday, September 26, the Grammy winner told host Angie Martinez about the time a photographer exposed himself to her during a photo shoot.
“I will never forget how I went to shoot for this magazine and the photographer, he was trying to get close to me like, ‘Yeah, you want to get in this magazine?’ Then he pulled his d–k out,” she recalled.“I was so f–king mad, and I was just like, ‘This is crazy.’”
When the “I Like It” artist told the magazine owner about the harassment, she claims she was met with a nonchalant response, which only confirmed her decision to walk off the set of the shoot.
“I was like, ‘[You’re] f–king bugging. You know what? I’m out,’” she continued. “You know what’s so crazy? I told the magazine owner and he just looked at me like, ‘So? And?’”
The Bronx native compared her experience to the #MeToo movement, which went viral in October 2017 after a string of sexual abuse allegations were made against film producer Harvey Weinstein. The movement was started by activist Tarana Burke on MySpace in 2006.
“When I see the #MeToo movement — there’s girls from the hood I know that went through the same type of treatment, like they make you feel like you got to do a certain type of thing for the most bulls–t s–t. It happens, really, every day,” she said.
When asked by Martinez if she still faces similar experiences today, Cardi responded, “Oh, hell no. I’ll put you on blast on my Instagram. … I’ll f–king violate.”
The “Bartier Cardi” rapper first referenced the assault in an interview with Cosmopolitan in 2018, where she pointed out the double standards that female rap and hip hop artists face in the music industry and the #MeToo movement.
“When I was trying to be a [music video] vixen, people were like, ‘You want to be on the cover of this magazine?’ Then they pull their d–ks out,” she said at the time. “I bet if one of these women stands up and talks about it, people are going to say, ‘So what? You’re a ho. It don’t matter.’”
Cardi’s Untold Stories of Hip Hop episode comes a little over a year after Weinstein, 67, pleaded not guilty to charges of felony rape and criminal sex acts in June 2018. The producer was accused of decades of sexual harassment and assault in exposés published by The New York Times and The New Yorker in October 2017. Since the reports, dozens of women, including actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Rose McGowan, have come forward with additional allegations of misconduct.
