LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Cardi B has admitted to drugging and robbing men while working as a stripper, but defended her past actions saying she had limited options at the time, and vowed to “be a better me” in the future.
The feisty “I Like It” singer, who shot to fame in the past two years, was responding in an Instagram post after a video surfaced that was recorded three years ago in which she spoke about going with men to a hotel with the expectation of sex, and drugging and robbing them.
The video sparked a backlash on social media under the hashtag #survivingcardib, with some users comparing her past actions with male singers who have been accused of sexual misconduct against women.
In her Instagram posting on Tuesday, Cardi B, 26, said there were “things in my past right or wrong that I felt I needed to do to make a living.”
“I’m a part of hip-hop culture where you can talk about where you come from, talk about the wrong things you had to do to get where you are,” she added.
Cardi B, who won her first Grammy Award in February, has previously spoken about working as a stripper for several years from the age of 19.
The singer said she did not put her past behavior into her music because “I’m not proud of it and feel a responsibility not to glorify it. I made the choices that I did at the time because I had very limited options.”
Cardi B is married to fellow rapper Offset and the couple have a nine-month-old daughter.
“All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future,” she wrote.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by G Crosse
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW YORK - US rapper Cardi B on Wednesday announced the end of her 15-month marriage to Offset, the rapper and father of her daughter, dropping a video with the news on Instagram.
"It's nobody's fault it's just like I guess we grew out of love," says the 26-year-old, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar.
"We're not together anymore. I don't know, it might take time to get a divorce."
Earlier this year, she confirmed reports that the pair had secretly married in Sept. 2017. Their daughter, Kulture, was born in July.
The separation revelation comes 2 days before Cardi B is due to appear in a New York court over assault and reckless endangerment charges. She had been expected to appear Monday, but failed to turn up.
The case stems from an August strip club brawl, which celebrity website TMZ said Cardi B ordered to target 2 bartenders -- sisters who accuse her of harboring a grudge because one of them slept with Offset.
"We've got a lot of love for each other but things just haven't been working out between us for a long time," says Cardi B in the video. "I'm going to always have a lot of love for him because he is my daughter's father."
Cardi B was in the Queens strip club on Aug. 29 while Offset was performing in the hard-living hip hop trio Migos when someone in her group lobbed furniture, bruising an employee in the legs.
Cardi B has become one of the biggest new stars in US music since the runaway success last year of her song "Bodak Yellow," which touches on her former life making ends meet as a stripper.
A Bronx native, she is the first female rapper to have had multiple No. 1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
She was also involved in a fracas with fellow rapper Nicki Minaj at New York Fashion Week in September, later taking to Instagram to say that the older Minaj had questioned her parenting skills.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
