Cardi B has responded to backlash about her criminal past by insisting she is "not proud" of the actions she took to "survive" while working as a struggling stripper.
The Bodak Yellow hitmaker touched on her rough background in an Instagram Live video over the weekend (23-24Mar19), when she revealed she was planning to write a memoir to set the record straight about some of the "f**ked up s**t" she had done during her youth.
She didn't go into detail at the time, but past footage of one of her live-streaming sessions has now resurfaced online and in it she confesses to drugging and robbing the men who wanted to sleep with her.
In the years-old clip, she says, "I had to go strip, I had to go, 'Oh yeah, you want to f**k me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go back to this hotel,' and I drugged n**gas up, and I robbed them. That's what I used to do."
Stunned social media users jumped on the comments and began taking aim at Cardi, using the hashtag #SurvivingCardiB to promote their efforts as they likened her to singer R. Kelly, whose career has been left in tatters following the recent Surviving R. Kelly docuseries, which chronicled years of sexual abuse allegations against him.
On Tuesday (26Mar19), Cardi took to Instagram to share a note about her previous behaviour, insisting she has never tried to hide from her mistakes.
"So I'm seeing on social media that (an Instagram) live I did 3 years ago has popped back up. A live where I talked about things I had to do in my past right or wrong that I felt I needed to do to make a living (sic)," 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 s**t (sic)."
Cardi explained she has never discussed the dark time in her music because she didn't want to "glorify" her actions, unlike some of her rap peers, and she is "not proud" of those aspects of her past.
"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. Whether or not they were poor choices at the time I did what I had to do to survive (sic)."
However, the hip-hop star made it clear that her alleged victims were actually guys she had been dating at the time, and they were aware of what she was doing: "The men I spoke about in my life were men that I dated that I was involved with men that (they) were conscious willing and aware."
"I have a past that I can't change we all do," she concluded.
Now Cardi simply hopes to set a better example for her fans and young daughter, Kulture.
In the accompanying caption, she wrote: "All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future."
Baby Kulture is her first child with husband Offset.
