Cardi B has addressed an old video that resurfaced in which she claimed to drug and steal from men in order to afford studio time. Three years ago, the then-23-year-old rapper responded to criticism of her work ethic by detailing the lengths she went to to pursue her art, which included drugging men who wanted to have sex with her back when she was a stripper and then taking their money. But now some fans are disappointed with the methods and deception Cardi employed, and even going as far as to compare her to R. Kelly.
"I had to go strip, I had to go, ‘Oh yeah, you want to fuck me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go to this hotel,’ and I drugged n*****s up and I robbed them," she said in the old video. "That’s what I used to do."
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The video began making the rounds this past week, ironically following the news of the artist's casting in the upcoming movie Hustlers, in which she and co-stars Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu play strippers who financially swindle their wealthy clientele.
"I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world with a perfect past I always speak my truth I always own my shit," Cardi wrote in a screenshot posted to Twitter on Tuesday following backlash. "I'm apart of the 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."
Cardi said she made a point to never include those details in her music as not to glorify her actions, despite the fact that other rappers reference murder and violence in their songs.
"I made the choices that I did at the time because I had very limited options," she said. "I was blessed to have been able to rise from that but so many women have not."
She stressed that she did what she had "to do to survive."
All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future. pic.twitter.com/VlPJW20thN
— iamcardib (@iamcardib) March 26, 2019