Cardi B has insisted she’s “not proud” of her past actions, after a video resurfaced showing her talking about drugging and robbing men earlier in her life.
Earlier this week, Cardi raised eyebrows when a three-year-old old Instagram Live video came to light, in which she describes how she would drug men who accosted her for sex and then steal from them, back when she was working as a stripper.
In the video, she says: “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. That’s what I used to do.”
After the video made headlines, Cardi posted a statement on her Twitter page, insisting she never intended to glorify her past.
She wrote: “I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world wit a perfect past I always speak my truth I always own my shit.
“Im apart 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 [sic].”
Cardi added: “There are rappers that glorify murder violence drugs and robbing. Crimes they feel they had to do to survive. I never glorified the things I brought up in that [video] I never even put those things in my 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. I was blessed to have been able to rise from that but so many women have not.
“Whether or not they were poor choices at the time I did what I had to do to survive.”
Days earlier, Cardi had tweeted: “I never claim to be a angel I always been a street bitch Ya be glorifying this street rappers that talk and do that grimmey street shit but they can’t stand a street bitch!”
In the three years since that Instagram video was first posted, Cardi has skyrocketed to mainstream fame, first with her huge hit Bodak Yellow, and later with her debut album, Invasion Of Privacy.
She recently picked up her first Grammy for Rap Album Of The Year, and was last year named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Last year, Cardi also became a mother to a baby girl, Kulture, whose father is the Migos rapper, Offset.