The following article mentions domestic violence.
However, things have not always been so fun or glamorous for the mega-famous rapper behind the scenes.
And above all else, they certainly haven’t been easy.
As one of the biggest stars in a male-dominated industry, Cardi is no stranger to adversity.
“You have to have the best verse.
Not only that, you have to kill the charts.
Let’s take a look at the tragic details of her life.
“I guess growing up, you know, my life was like a regular life.
They’re real good people and everything, I was just raised in a bad society.”
“I always wanted to be something that was going to make me have money,” she said.
Cardi doubled down on this sentiment onXin 2022 when she defended buying her children expensive gifts.
My mama couldn’t stand me.
You know, then Trini people be like, ‘Get out.
It’s two days before your birthday, leave, leave, leave now.'”
As a kid, Cardi loved being onstage and making music.
However, her priorities changed after her living situation shifted.
It wasn’t reality anymore," she told Mariah Carey in a 2021 chat forInterviewmagazine.
“I never really had a bad relationship … “My mom was just super strict and she used to beat me every day.”
Cardi insisted this motivated her to finish school and go to college.
“My mom and father raised me real good, they’re real strict parents,” she said.
“I’m a product of my environment.”
When Cardi told her mother she’d started dancing in strip clubs, it did not go over well.
The rapper said her mom struck her and pushed her down a staircase.
She went on to share that her mother wouldn’t accept the money that she earned from dancing.
Nowadays, Cardi’s relationship with her mother is in a much more stable place.
It was a difficult period for her for many reasons.
“At that time I just felt like my world was coming to an end,” she said.
“I was that teenager who was like, I don’t need nobody.
But my boyfriend kept cheating on me.
He and I used to get into arguments, hitting each other a lot.
But I started stripping, and I made enough money to move out.”
I don’t ever regret it.”
After she started stripping, Cardi began posting about her job on social media.
Her Vines and Instagram posts caught on like wildfire, and the rest is history.
Over the years, Cardi’s reportedly clashed with a handful of musicians, including fellow rapper BIA.
BIA released a song called “SUE MEEE?”
in response, and as the title suggests, she didn’t back down from the battle.
In it, she seemed to imply that Offset was unfaithful to Cardi.
Cardi B falls in the second category.
You ain’t got no t***ies."
And it would make me feel so ugly and undeveloped," she said.
Cardi underwent breast augmentation after she started dancing in strip clubs.
“[E]very insecurity that I felt about my breasts was gone,” she said.
So I felt insecure about that.
It took me back to high school.
So I got my ass done.
And then I felt super confident."
In 2020, Cardi also got a nose job.
He was 28 years old.
Quavo, fellow Migos member and Takeoff’s uncle, was present at the shooting.
A man named Patrick Xavier Clark was later indicted.
Offset’s history with Takeoff and Quavo started way before they created Migos.
Offset wasn’t related to Takeoff and Quavo, but they all grew up together.
When Takeoff died, Offset and Cardi felt like their whole world was turned upside-down.
“I was just crying so much.
It was terrible.”
A little over a week after Takeoff was murdered, Cardi paid tribute to him onInstagram.
Understandably, the barrage of messages and negative attention pointed at Kulture weigh heavily on her parents.
“So many people will post mean, disgusting things, just to get a reaction from us.”
Cardi eventually faced the music.
Cardi took a plea deal to wrap the incident up quickly.
She’d previously rejected a plea deal two years prior.
Cardi B knows this better than anyone.
In 2022, Cardi took toInstagramto lament about life under the harsh glare of the limelight.
“Let me tell you something,” she told her followers during an IG Live.
“If y’all ever wish to be rich and famous don’t wish to be famous.
Wish to be rich.”
At one point during the set, Billie called something “weird.”
It didn’t take long before people assumed Eilish was talking about Cardi.
However, before the speculation could spiral, the two talked about the non-drama.
Turns out, the two get on like birds of a feather.
“Billie is my f**kin baby,” Cardi wrote.
Later that year, they got married.
A month after that, Offset proposed to Cardi at a concert.
The following year,Cardi confirmed they had a secret weddingbefore they got engaged.
And in August 2024, word got out that Cardi had filed for divorce from Offset.
The “WAP” rapper previously filed for divorce in 2020, but later called it off.
Shortly after the divorce news broke, Cardi gave fans another surprise: a baby announcement.
The star took toInstagramto post a photograph of herself in a red dress cradling a baby bump.
“With every ending comes a new beginning!”
she captioned the snaps.
In a May 2024 interview forRolling Stone, Cardi offered a bittersweet assessment of the state of her marriage.
“We’re best friends.
And it’s like, ‘OK.
It’s not even about ‘How do you leave a partner?’
How do you stop talking to your best friend?”
After Cardi filed, a source toldPage Sixthe two had simply “grown apart.”
