Facing backlash. Cardi B spoke out on Tuesday, March 26, after the rapper said that she “robbed” and “drugged” men when she was a stripper in a newly resurfaced video.
“I had to go strip, I had to go, ‘Oh yeah, you want to f—-k me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go back to this hotel,’” the 26-year-old Grammy winner said in the video shared on social media on Monday, March 25. “I drugged n—-ers and I robbed them. That’s what I used to do.”
In light of the clip, fans started using the hashtag #SurvivingCardiB, a reference to Lifetime’s docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, which covered sexual assault allegations from several women about R. Kelly.
“So I’m seeing on social media that a live I did 3 years ago has popped back up. A live where I talked about things I had to do in my past right or wrong that I felt like I needed to do to make a living,” Cardi began in a lengthy statement shared on Instagram on Tuesday. “I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world wit (SIC) a perfect past I always speak my truth I always own my s-—t.”
While Cardi pointed out that other rappers “glorify murder, violence, drugs and robbing,” she stated that she has never promoted things she did in her past.
“I never even put those things in my music because I’m not proud of it and feel a responsibility not to glorify it,” Cardi wrote. “I made the choices that I did at the time because I had very limited options. I was blessed to have been able to rise from that but so many women have not.”
The “I Like It” rapper concluded: “Whether or not they were poor choices at the time, I did what I had to do to survive. The men I spoke about in my live were men that I dated, that I was involved with. Men that were conscious, willing, and aware,” she concluded. “I have a past that I can’t change. We all do.”
Cardi rose to fame following the release of her 2017 hit single “Bodak Yellow.” Before she was embraced by the music industry, she appeared on VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: New York.
