Cardi B is trying to clarify herself after a video resurfaced online where the rapper said she drugged and robbed men for money, the AP reports. The Grammy winner posted a statement Tuesday on Instagram and Twitter that says she had "very limited options" and needed to do anything to "make a living," adding that she wasn't trying to glorify her actions but felt they were necessary at the time. Cardi B is facing backlash from the Instagram Live video she says is from three years ago. As USA Today, NBC News, and the Cut note, the rapper says in the video that during her days as a stripper in New York when she was trying to make it in the music industry, she took strip club customers who wanted to have sex with her to hotel rooms, where she drugged and robbed them to get money to go to the studio and record.
Some on social media criticized the rapper for her admission with the hashtag #SurvivingCardiB in reference to the R. Kelly documentary Surviving R. Kelly. Cardi said in her statement that the men she spoke about in the video were ones she dated or was involved with and that they were "conscious willing and aware." She 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 live I never even put those things in my music because I'm not proud of it and feel a responsibility not to glorify it." She added in the caption, "All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future." She had initially tried to brush off the controversy, including with a tweet Sunday reading, "When they try to cancel me on Twitter and instagram." (More Cardi B stories.)
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