Since she became world famous by sharing just about everything with us via social media, the fact that Cardi B kept her pregnancy hidden for so many months before showing off her belly on SNL in April had many baffled. Why suddenly so private? In their joint cover story for Rolling Stone this month, she and Offset finally revealed what was going on behind the scenes during those months of secrecy.
"A lot of successful women have kids, and a lot of successful artists have kids, but not at the peak of their career," Cardi B told the magazine, admitting why she was worried about having a baby.
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When she told Offset about their unplanned pregnancy via FaceTime, and asked what she should do about it, the father of three was reassuring. "He said, ‘What do you mean, what are you going to do? You're going to keep it,' " she said.
Others close to Cardi shared her doubts, however. "It was like, ‘You can't do this. This might fuck up your career.' "
Not that anyone who has watched the Bronx rapper's rise has much reason to believe she can't do anything she puts her mind to it, but she did face some challenges during those early months. Pregnancy tends to zap a mother's energy as her hormones rearrange themselves and her body produces more blood. Cardi said she was feeling those effects as she was trying to perform around the country and record her debut album.
Finally, she revealed what was going on to her recording engineer, and they made arrangements to record the album on the road with her. As we can see, Invasion of Privacy turned out just fine, thank you very much. And apparently, the second trimester boost of energy hit her in time for a twerk-filled Coachella performance, too.
"I see a lot of women online, like, 'I feel sorry for you. Your career is over,' " she said in a Breakfast Club interview shortly after revealing her pregnancy. "And it's like, 'Why can't I have both?' "
What remains to be seen is whether Cardi will give up one huge aspect of her current life, her social media openness when it comes to her daughter.
"My feelings get hurt when people online talking about family members," she told Rolling Stone. "I think I'll kill somebody if somebody talking about my child like that."