Cardi B isn’t holding anything back.
Rocking a sexy Mugler bodysuit with silver Dylanlex earrings and sparkly boots by Nicolas Jebran, the “Bartier Cardi” rapper stuns on the cover of Cosmopolitan‘s April issue. In her accompanying interview with the magazine, the 25-year-old Bronx, New York, native gets candid about her engagement to Offset (from the rap trio Migos), and all the rumors surrounding the current status of their relationship.
Cardi B seemed to be the happiest girl on the planet last October when Offset asked her to marry him while the two were performing in front of a crowd of nearly 20,000 during the Power 99 Powerhouse concert in Philadelphia. But since then, fans started speculating that their engagement was on the rocks, alleging that Offset was being unfaithful to his bride-to-be. However, the “Bodak Yellow” rapper made it clear on Valentine’s Day that they were very much still together, gushing over their “REAL relationship, not relationship goals.”
“It’s like everybody is coming down my neck like, ‘Why are you not leaving him? You have low self-esteem,'” Cardi tells Cosmopolitan. “I don’t have low self-esteem… I know I look good. I know I’m rich, I know I’m talented. I know I could get any man I want — any basketball player, football player. But I want to work out my s**t with my man, and I don’t got to explain why.”
“I’m not your property. This is my life,” she continues. “I’m going to take my time, and I’m going to decide on my decision… It’s not right, what he f**king did, but people don’t know what I did, ’cause I ain’t no angel.”
Cardi says everybody seems to get “bothered about everything” these days, but she’s not changing — for anyone.
“Everybody got different beliefs and different religions and were raised differently, yet you also supposed to be careful you don’t offend somebody,” she dishes. “Everybody got a f**king opinion about you. If I change myself, then I’m going to lose myself, and I won’t be who makes me happy.”
Back in the day, the entertainer made her “money moves” by being a stripper, a job she has no shame discussing whenever she’s asked about her rise to stardom. “People say, ‘Why do you always got to say that you used to be a stripper? We get it.’ Because y’all don’t respect me because of it, and y’all going to respect these strippers from now on.”
“Just because somebody was a stripper don’t mean they don’t have no brain,” she adds.
Cardi B appeared on another cover late last month, absolutely slaying her photo shoot for the new CR Fashion Book Issue 12. She was interviewed by Zendaya for the outlet, where she got real about the highs and lows of fame, even admitting that she was “a little bit happier” two or three years ago before she became a rap superstar.
“Well, one positive thing [about fame] is that, my family, whatever they want, they get,” she explained. “Everything that I want to buy, I can get. I don’t have to worry so much about my future.”
“[But before fame] I had less people who had opinions about my life,” she continued. “I felt like my life was mine. Now I feel like I don’t even own my life. I feel like the world owns me.”
