Offset caught a lot of flak for his high-profile December 2018 apology to Cardi B, but he maintains the public display of contrition was sincere and not for show.
“I love my wife, so it’s serious, not gaming,” the Migos rapper, 27, said on the Ellen DeGeneres Show episode airing on Friday, March 22. “So, it’s like, we can have schedules, and we have shows, and I just felt like, if I gave a break between time — I just can’t give that break between time. So it’s not forefront. I step to it as a man and say I’m wrong. … And you don’t have to take me back, but I just want you to know I love you and I care.”
He continued: “I’m putting it all on the table just like [when] I asked her to marry me in Philadelphia at the [Power 99 Powerhouse concert] in front of 60,000 people. … And when I did that, they were like, ‘Oh, well, why he do that?’ ‘Cause it’s just my affection, showing I’m not hiding it. I’m not hiding my affection for you, that’s all. That’s just me being vulnerable, I guess. You know, and it kinda bit me with the response of people, but that’s why a man don’t be trying to be vulnerable, ‘cause when you do it, it’s like, ‘Aargh.’ There’s something wrong with it either way.”
Cardi and Offset announced their separation in December 2018 after one year of marriage, with Offset asking his wife’s forgiveness via Instagram, saying he had “entertained” the thought of being unfaithful. Later that month, he crashed the 26-year-old’s Rolling Loud Festival performance, bringing along a massive floral display spelling out the words “TAKE ME BACK CARDI.” Cardi brushed off the interruption and continued with the show, and afterward, fans on Twitter accused Offset of apologizing for publicity.
At the time, a source told Us Weekly the onstage apology was “a genuine gesture” that Offset himself had devised. “What about this is a PR stunt?” the source said. “They live their lives in the public eye, and showing someone you care in front of others is something people do.”
Cardi, who shares 8-month-old daughter Kulture with Offset, defended her then-estranged husband at the time. “Violating my baby father isn’t going to make me feel any better,” the Grammy winner told Instagram followers. “Because at the end of the day, that’s still family.”
The couple has since reconciled, and Offset expressed his commitment to Cardi in his track “Don’t Lose Me,” which was released last month. “Number one, it’s a loyalty code (Number one),” he raps on the track. “Temptation, had the devil in my soul (Temptation) / I wanna be with you when we old (When we old) / We didn’t do this, we didn’t know how s–t goes (We didn’t know).”
Offset and Cardi secretly married in September 2017, one month before his public proposal at the Power 99 concert in Philadelphia, as Cardi confirmed in June 2018.
