Cardi B was four hours late to her BeautyCon talk in New York yesterday. Some people left, but most people stayed to hear her speak and answer questions about branding, money, business classes and more. Cardi turned up in this Paco Rabanne (vintage) fur coat and she didn’t take it off for her talk. She and the BeautyCon organizers also did something for all of the people who were pissed about Cardi’s lateness – I guess they’ll be getting some kind of special gift from Cardi or something. Anyway, THR had a good write-up of the event, and here are some pearls of wisdom from Cardi:
Her apology for being late: “Sorry I’m a little late. You know a bitch flew from Vegas. That’s what happens when you try to do everything…You overbook yourself. Don’t think I’m a diva. I’m always chasing the bag.”
Being a stripper at 18: “Don’t let people judge you. A lot of people said, ‘You don’t have to strip. You have other choices.’ No the f–k I didn’t.” Asked if she would change anything, she responded with an emphatic, “The f–k no.”
Understand business: “If you’re in college, take a business class,” she said, qualifying the fact that she did not because of the math class prerequisite, which was not her game. “I have to hire a business manager and pay extra money. So I depend on someone else to run my business. Sometimes the career that you study for will not make you happy one day. And you want to become your own boss…What’s the point of working to be a slave to bills?”
Ask for what you want: “These men don’t hesitate to ask and that’s why they get what they want. Women be so scared to ask what we need and we’re too ashamed, but these men do, so?”
She had a singular focus when she was younger: “Everything that was on my mind was how I would make money and the d–k that I was f–king. There is so much distraction right now. The internet has so many ways to make money, but you don’t even notice that because you’re so focused on, ‘Who is Cardi B? Who is Kim Kardashian?’ I wish I knew how poppin’ Instagram was because I would be selling all those things, this and that. Watch the bloggers’ recipe because you can be doing the same sh-t. I watch how Kylie Jenner became a f–king billionaire!”Additional advice: Her other advice included the merits of living with your mom to save money and not lending “broke ass dudes” money, as she did, especially to impress them. She credited the social media stars who have turned their YouTube tutorials into thriving makeup lines, saying, “They made it that far because they focused.”
On tax rates: Then she launched into an assault on high taxes, saying that if she makes $15 million, about $8 or $9 million of it goes to the government. “Then you’d be like, damn, I gave all that money to Uncle Sam and there’s still pot holes in my street!”
I always see people questioning Cardi’s intelligence and education, like we should only listen to dudes who have a Harvard degree or something. I mean, I’m guilty of it too, because I think some/many celebrities are absolute idiots who would benefit from further formal education. Cardi was a good student and you can tell – she might not sound like a college graduate, but she’s smart and she’s figured out a lot of sh-t the hard way, through terrible life experiences. Speaking of, I’m a little bit surprised there was no mention of Cardi’s past as someone who drugged and robbed men??
Photos courtesy of Getty.
I’m glad it wasn’t brought up. She’s talked about it twice now. She’s apologized for it and talked about how ashamed of it she is. People need to move tf on. Cancel culture is always stating that it wants people to take responsibility and then even when they do people STILL want rake them over the coals for it. So which is it? Do we want people to be accountable or nah? Or is it just about being able to forever judge them for it?
Would you be ok with a man who admitted to drugging and robbing women just because he apologized for it years later? Not to mention she’s done plenty of other awful things.
Girl, bye. You are up here calling people terrible human beings for liking or defending Cardi. I’m not defending what she did – but neither is she. So what’s your point?
Just because you aren’t defending her doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who are.
If the man apologized for it, stopped the behavior, and tried to get his life together and be a better person then yes, I would forgive that male celebrity.
Men don’t JUST drug and rob women, ever. Do they? Men would punch a woman in the face and rob them. Use physical violence.
Cardi used drugs to overpower men.
There are so many layers to the power dynamic in the sex worker – john relationship, that it’s unfair to pretend it’s so black and white.
@Valiantly Varnished: I’m not really a fan of the way cancel culture plays out either tbh, or how it’s used to shut down all other conversations related to the cancelled individual.
Exactly. Which was my point.
Cardi is transphobic. Cardi has called dark-skinned women roaches. Cardi is a former violent gang member. Cardi has admitted to drugging and robbing men (and NO, these men were not soliticing her for sex, she never said that at all).
Cardi is a terrible human being and so are the people who defend her.
Cardi called HERSELF a roach. Cardi apologized for her comment and said she didn’t realize what she said was transphobic, Cardi has admitted to drugging men for money and stated she is ashamed of it and it’s why she doesn’t talk about it in her music because she didn’t want to glamorize it.
I hope you are bringing this same energy to every MALE rapper in the game who brag about drug dealing even murder and glorify it in their songs.
So she gets a pass just for being dumb and ignorant? Cool, cool.
I also think most male rappers are disgusting. Every time a rap song comes on my Spotify recently I’m absolutely disgusted. I don’t enjoy rap music in general because it’s usually gross. However, most male rappers aren’t glorified as some feminist second coming like Cardi is.
Where is she getting a pass?? And Cardi may be a lot of things but dumb isn’t one of them. Listen hun. If you don’t like her dont support her. Just like you feel about other rappers. Just keep it pushing. But coming on a thread and making a declarative statement calling people trash is pretty ignorant as well.
This is a site called Celebitchy, not Cardi Central. You have no say in who I comment on or what I say about them. None of the facts in my comment are false. Nor are my opinions any less relevant than yours. Just because you sadly seem to idolize her doesn’t mean I should stop.
You literally wrote, “Cardi is a terrible human being and so are the people defending her.” That’s ignorant as hell.
Yeah hun you can write what you want. That’s a given. And people have a right to respond to it. That’s how this works.
And for the record: I’m a 38 year old woman. I dont idolize anybody hun – I’m too old for stan culture. So stop making assumptions. But I’ve had enough life experience to not see every situation in black and white.
@Cady: So wait a minute, now the conversation isn’t just about her criminal past, but about every single problematic thing she’s ever said and done in her short life, even things she has apologized for and stopped saying? That’s a risky game to play. I’m almost sure that like most people you’ve said problematic, bigoted, or insensitive things in your lifetime either about people whose struggles you were not yet fully educated about/ close to, or about groups of people whom you’ve been socialized from childhood to view as beneath you- for example, certain kinds of women/girls. I’m sure that if you stay on sites like these long enough, you probably will again.
Just a heads up, idolization has nothing to do with it. If you do end up using dehumanizing language about women whom it’s always been popular to dehumanize in a public space like this, there’s a chance that you’ll be criticized for it. It’s just something to get used to. Cardi B isn’t a feminist by the way, and drugging to get away with theft isn’t really a feminist issue.
Cady, I’m with Valiently Varnished and Lala11_7 on this one. I get what you are saying, but a ton of people live in a weird world between poverty and the gangster drama that is born of poverty.
A friend who was from our neighborhood used to love to watch lion and hyena documentaries because it reminded him of the neighborhood that we grew up in, and he wasn’t lying: one false move, and you were toast. I get Cardi because I came up in a similar place, but my mom went to college, so I did, too. I considered being a call girl because my stepdad died, my mom was in jail, my bio dad didn’t care, and neither did anyone in my family. It sucked. I didn’t drug dudes, but they sure tried to do it to me. I now live a nice, comfy, middle class lifestyle. Blaming somebody like Cardi for being immature, who threw around the homophobic language that is such a HUGE part of cultures in poverty in the U.S., in the ghetto and in Trump world, is cancelling somebody who I personally think is a much better role model for young women in poverty than an Ivanka Trump- type who was/is promoted as an ideal. Ivanka is an idiot, but most people didn’t know until her dad became president, and that lead to the dumb book that plagiarized a bunch of other people’s ideas.
A whole bunch of people are considered appropriate role models and are “good” people, but are they or are they like Ivanka with a worker behind the screen making them look “better”. What should a role model in popular culture look like, sound like? If Cardi B is garbage, than I must be a garbage human being, too. I will wear it with pride.
@Christina, tell.it.ma’am
Thank you, DS9. <3<3<3
I’m 50 and still sending hearts 😊
Well said. Role models come in lots of varieties – not all of them “perfect.”
@Christina – ‘in the ghetto and in Trump world…’ There is a lot of acreage between the ghetto and Trump world. Cardi B is garbage; making excuses for her stupid crap is also garbage. Just because one comes from a particular background doesn’t give her license to exhibit anti-social behavior.
@Christina – just here to say, please don’t allow anyone to label or make you feel like ‘garbage’ – especially those hiding behind computer screens and screen names.
@Clare – I am not hiding. I object to the branding of lower income individuals as horrible people doing horrible things as if their behavior is the norm.
“@Christina – just here to say, please don’t allow anyone to label or make you feel like ‘garbage’ – especially those hiding behind computer screens and screen names.” What Clare said, all the way. This isn’t Karen Pence’s class.
@TabithaStevens: You’re definitely right that drugging and robbing people isn’t the norm for low income individuals or really any other group for that matter. With some crimes, where the criminal is in life in terms of income, age, and mental stability impact how angry some people will stay about the crime, and for how long. That’s just the truth, even though wrong is wrong and in an ideal world, nobody would be stealing or drugging someone so they can get away unscathed after robbing them.
Exactly Christina!
“Everything that was on my mind was how I would make money and the d–k that I was f–king.”
I LITERALLY HOLLERED AT MY JOB READING THAT!!!!!
Cause…babygirl AIN’T NEVA LIED!!!!!
‘….if she makes $15 million, about $8 or $9 million of it goes to the government.’ Absolutely ridiculous that the government takes more than half her money as if it is theirs for the taking. I once had a part-time sales job that paid a commission. When I received the commission check, the government would take my ENTIRE regular check, as if I didn’t need it. I don’t work for the government. Rip off.
Ok hold up.
She did these things to survive or she did these things to maintain a certain lifestyle?
She claims she’s being real but she’s airing modified laundry in my opinion.
“she did these things to maintain a certain lifestyle”
She robbed the men to pay for studio time, not so she could survive.
Yeah she said by the time she was 19 she was paying her rent and buying designer shoes with the money she was making for stripping. She wanted studio time which is very expensive so she drugged and robbed men. Disgusting. I don’t understand why some celebs get a pass and others don’t.
Nah. Not to survive. Like she said, people told her she had other options. But she wanted a lot of fast money to sustain a more materialistic lifestyle. I know a few people who have followed her since way back and said she has been flossing and bragging about buying and owning name brand everything and high end labels since she was about 19/20. Not knocking her hustle but she chose stripping cuz she wasn’t trying to live the average Jane lifestyle, not because she was trying to scrape up money to survive. She wasn’t destitute or anything. She’s just always been about the $$$.
But in here she has the eternal pass. It’s crazy how anything she does is justified.
I liked her so much because I think she is genuinely funny but the drugging and robbing men thing has left me cold. Not so much because it’s wrong to drug and rob people (it is, not saying it’s good) but mostly because she keeps saying she had to to survive. This girl is covered in thousands of dollars of ink that she’s had for a long time, probably during her days of drugging and robbing. You do not need tattoos to survive, so I get a sense she wasn’t as desperate as she claimed she was, she just wanted easy money.
She got most of the tatts while she was on Love & Hip Hop if I’m not mistaken but I could be wrong about that.
She got a boob job at 19 I think. That was not necessary was it?
Definitely not. But she was also a stripper and most strippers get boob jobs because they make more money that way.
True but if she had money to get a boob job she must have been doing well as a stripper without them. I mean if you are really trying to “survive” food and rent would always come first.
That just adds to my point. I have tats and I would love to get a boob job (although opposite direction to make them smaller), but I’m not out there robbing people to pay for anything. These were not crimes of necessity and now that we know what we know it’s clear her hustle isn’t admirable.
Lol at 19 I was living with two other roommates in a tiny 2.5 bdrm railroad apt because my parents were living in the projects in an overcrowded apt and mgmt refused to move us into a bigger apt. And I definitely could not afford a boob job or a couture wardrobe at the time. I wouldn’t call myself struggling or trying to survive, though. I was just working a regular job and living and having fun with friends.
Let’s keep it real. Cardi was always on that materialistic lifestyle and trying to support it by any means necessary.
I can’t get past that either. I don’t want to judge someone for doing what they have to in order to survive, especially in that environment of systemic poverty, but I can’t ever understand hurting someone else in the process, especially drugging another person. Especially as she said this happened when she was working as a stripper I believe, so she had a job at the time.
I do give her credit for being open about a lot of stuff most people aren’t, and admitting when she was wrong and trying to grow from that.
She is right about taking a business class.
But, you don’t have to be ‘in college’ to take a business class.
There are SO many other options. (online courses, executive education courses etc) depending on your budget and what you are looking for. If you are starting a business, and can afford it, I think the best thing you can do is invest in an Exec Ed course at a top University (most don’t require prior education, but they ARE expensive). If you have a smaller budget, try coursera, or similar.
+1000000 probably a better use of most people’s $$ than college tuition!
Cardi did illegal stuff and stripped to make herself feel bigger and more powerful. A LOT of kids fromthe ghetto do that. Someof them make it out and mature, like Jay-Z.
We want everyone to want to do the right thing, but young folks in poverty see media represebations of life, so they do stupid crap to feel bigger. They are 19 and flossing red heels and fast cars because our society promotes it. To the Cardi B’s of the world, getting to the top is what counts, and they see the Olivia Jades of the world having and doing things so easily. I didn’t drug dudes, but I didn’t feel so small that I felt that I needed a ton of money to feel “big”.
“I didn’t drug dudes, but I didn’t feel so small that I felt that I needed a ton of money to feel “big”.”
Same girl… Same. My parents and family were humble immigrants living in projects and tenamnet bldgs in a neighborhood full of abandoned or run down bldgs. A bit too humble sometimes. While I felt like I wanted more for myself than what they had and living where they were living, I was also never swayed by the lifestyle the drug dealers, runners, strippers and gang bangers were fronting on when I was younger. I was just happy being able to make my own money at a regular gig and live within my means. Helped me save and I was the first of my friends to have her very own apt all to myself by the time I was 23. Things like that made me feel empowered, even if I wasn’t driving a Bugatti or wearing a different pair of red bottoms every day of the week.
Exactly, ReginaGeorge. I was in my own place when I became a junior in college. My mom got out of jail and came to live with me in my tiny studio aprartment. She got a job, and we got a 1-bedroom. I never was enchanted by “the life” because I didn’t want drama. I wanted peace, not money, but I can’t judge the folks who didn’t have the self-esteem to see another path, including my mother. If my mother hadn’t gone to jail, maybe I would have felt compelled to enter the life, but I just didn’t want the drama. Cute guys would ask me out, but I wouldn’t do it if they were in the life because I didn’t want to fall for some guy who might go to prison. They called me a “good girl”, but I viewed it as pragmatic choices made.
Not everyone in poverty does stupid crap. Stop generalizing.
No, not everybody who came from poverty did does dumb stuff. Most don’t. But it’s simplistic to condemn someone who has come from that place of you don’t understand it. Some of the comments make me think that a bunch of people here have no idea how someone could stoop that low or why. Halsey jus came out and admitted that she considered being a call girl when she was homeless in NYC trying to make it as an artist. And a lot of women like Cardi B, who talk like her, get dumped on for knowing how to handle themselves around men instead of being victimized by them.
People say that they want to understand and help, but them get upset when it’s explained by folks who have lived it and watched the dynamics in real time, so step off, TabithaStevens, if you don’t agree. My lived experience has provided my perspective.
I am very surprised that so many of you are giving her a pass regarding the drugging and robbing of men. Even rationalizing and justifying it for her. If it were someone else they would be “canceled” immediately, no questions asked. I don’t get it.
I don’t get it either.
Me either. Love to hear what her comments would be if someone were to rob her now. Okay because they are down and out?
So do people realize the average stripper has a shelf life? Paying her rent (in an expensive ass city to boot) does mean set for life. Strippers go through money like water and it’s not a long term career. A lot of them end up struggling in the end.
And the boob job is a business expense when you’re a stripper. Why are we talking about it like it’s a BMW
Oh, she should receive legal punishment if it’s true and if the guys come forward to admit that they were victimized by her, but our justice system couldnt get Epstein in Florida convicted for liquoring up and encouraging vulnerable 13-16 year olds to “service” old men for $100 bills. When that guy pays a real price for what he did to many teenagers with many POWERFUL/WEALTHY/mostly-White-that-we-know-of men over many years, we can talk about Cardi B going to jail for what she did. And that is the kind of thing that kids like me saw, and that is what turns so many poor kids to crime to “make it”. Old white dudes do whatever they want, and, for the most part, they are just fine. Let’s talk about THAT and try to change THAT. But tearing down women like Cardi B is WAAAY easier. Hey, I thought that OJ was guilty, but the joy in the Black community didn’t surprise me, because, at that time, we weren’t sure if it was whiteness or money that got folks off. There was a time when being a minority with money couldn’t save you. Now it apparantly can. In my sick mind, that’s progress, and it’s sad.
Whataboutism?
TabithatStevens, I have no idea why a man would want to screw a 13 year old, but I do understand being a young woman of color who feels that the world is unfair. I chose not to do illegal things, but I know plenty of people who did, and I get why.
I wish she would take a remedial English class and learn to speak properly and coherently. By the way,,,why are these people famous? They seem to only glorify a gansgta life and celebrate ostentatious lifestyles. Whitney Houston was one of pop musics true superstars. She had a voice for the ages. Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, …people like these are singers. Cardi B, et al, not so much.
Well, Fluffy, please also consider that Whitney Houston also was marketed to be “universally acceptable”, the code for “white”, and that she was told to sing music appealing to white people by Clive Davis while he and her mother wanted her to stay in the closet, with her mom wanting her to deny that she was a lesbian. I have close friends who went to college with her high school classmates, and they shared that she was openly lesbian. That hiding of her true self as a Black Woman and as a lebian or bisexual woman killed her. That’s the part that people refuse to see.
I’m an almost 60 year old white gay guy who was reared in South Carolina. My father was an evangelical minister. Although a loving parent, he never could accept my homosexuality. All through school I tried to hide my orientation… it was literally about my survival. I spent most of those years in terror of being physically assaulted. Then in church I would hear the message that I was not good enough.
I’m aware of everything you stated about Whitney and completely in agreement.But dammit, the woman could sing. Whitney’s demons got the best of her. I still struggle with my own. Peace.