Cardi B has defended herself after a video emerged showing her discussing drugging and robbing men when she worked as a stripper.
In the three-year-old clip shared on social media on the weekend, the Grammy-winning rapper explained how she would target men while working in New York.
The video inspired the hashtag #SurvivingCardiB, a reference to the documentary Surviving R Kelly, as well as calls to boycott Cardi B.
Cardi B, 26, has now responded to the controversy in a lengthy Instagram post, writing she did things in her past “I felt I needed to do to make a living”.
She said she never claimed “to be perfect or come from a perfect world” or have a “perfect past”, adding “I always speak my truth”.
“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. I made the choices that I did at the time because I had very limited options”, the post continued.
Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, added: “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.”
The post was captioned: “All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future.”
Cardi B made history earlier this year when she became the first solo woman to win the best rap album Grammy for her debut effort Invasion Of Privacy.