Cardi B Isn’t Embarrassed by Anything She’s Done — Not Her Stripper Past Nor Her Nicki Minaj Feud

Five-time Grammy nominee Cardi B has had a complicated and challenging past, but she’s not shying away from it

Cardi B has had a complicated and challenging past, but she’s not shying away from it.

In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning aired this past weekend, the Grammy nominee, 26, who recently split from her husband of more than a year, fellow rapper Offset, 26, delved into her former stripping career, how it led her to fame, and all the drama that’s happened since she started topping charts — especially relating to Nicki Minaj, 36, another female musician at the top of her game.

When the host asked her how she feels looking back at her time in clubs — a job she acquired after getting kicked out of her house at 18 and fired from a grocery story for being chronically late — she said she was “glad for this chapter in my life.”

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“In literally five hours, I made my whole check or maybe a little bit more,” she recalled. “I did gain a passion and love of performing. It made me feel pretty [and powerful] … A lot of people want to make fun of me … I don’t ever regret it.”

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She added that she “learned a lot,” and that thanks to her coworkers, money became “my biggest ambition … Nothing was important but the money.”

The “Bodak Yellow” hitmaker then shared that she earned $200,000 from stripping, which allowed her to start putting together mixtapes and led her to where she is now.

Part of her current position means making headlines for fights, which she told CBS she feels is “unnecessary.” And even though she doesn’t regret it — “Am I ever embarrassed about anything that I do? No,” she said — she still thinks “it’s bad for business.”

Cardi B and Offset. John Parra/Telemundo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
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The Bronx native clarified: “A lot of people like to say all publicity is good publicity, but to me it’s not because that takes away from people paying attention to your craft. It makes people not even care about your craft. They just wanna see drama.”

The drama in particular that fans and critics alike crave is her ongoing feud with Minaj. Animosity between the pair first caught people’s attention when they rumbled at the Harper’s Bazaar ICONS party during New York Fashion Week back in September. The “Chun-Li” emcee discussed the scuffle two days later on her Queen radio show on Apple Music’s Beats 1, but Cardi took about a month to explicitly address it, vague social media posts aside.

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In an interview with W Magazine published in October, the rapper opened up about the ugly incident. “For a while now she’s been taking a lot of shots at me,” Cardi said of Minaj in the W cover story. “I spoke to her twice before, and we came to an understanding. But she kept it going.”

As she alluded to in an Instagram she shared the night of the fight, the fuse for the fight was lit when Minaj allegedly criticized her skills as a parent. She and Offset share a daughter, Kulture Kiari, 5 months. Cardi said that Minaj liked (but then unliked) a social media post that mocked her as a mom — a claim Minaj herself reportedly denies.

Regardless of whether or not it actually happened, the perceived slam had Cardi seeing red.

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“I was going to make millions off my Bruno Mars tour, and I sacrificed that to stay with my daughter,” Cardi explained of her decision to bow out of the blockbuster trek with her “Finesse” partner. “I love my daughter. I’m a good-ass f—ing mom. So for somebody that don’t have a child to like that comment?”

That’s when she decided to confront Queen Barbz about it — using her shoe to emphasize some points. Whether or not a glamorous fashion week soirée was the occasion, the showdown remains up for debate.

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“So many people want to say that party wasn’t the time or the place, but I’m not going to catch another artist in the grocery store or down the block,” Cardi shot back.

In the CBS interview, Cardi bemoaned the controversies she’s landed herself in since becoming famous just within the last few years.

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“When I was like a nothing, everybody was rooting [for me], but now that I’m finally here, people have a problem for it,” she said. “I worked so hard. People feel like I don’t deserve it.”

But that’s not stopping her from persevering, she told the outlet.

“I get up every single time, honey. Even before this fame stuff, I always get up all the time,” she concluded. “I show people that. I show it over and over again.”