"I made the choices I did at the time because I had very limited options."
Cardi B on Tuesday defended herself against critics after an Instagram video surfaced over the weekend that showed her recalling how she used to drug and rob men while seducing them before she was famous.
"I'm a part of a hip hop culture where you can talk about where you come from talk about the wrong things you had to do to get where you are," she said in a lengthy Instagram post Tuesday.
In the video recording, a visibly upset Cardi said she “drugged” men and “robbed them" after making them think they were going to have sex.
"I had to go strip, I had to go, 'Oh yeah, you want to fuck me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go to this hotel,'” she said. “That’s what I used to do."
The video, recorded from an Instagram live broadcast and posted online, also shows Cardi yelling and in tears as she rants in response to someone who said she doesn't deserve her success "because [she didn't] put it in no fucking work."
“Nothing was motherfucking handed to me,” she added.
Cardi's comments, however, caused a lot of backlash online.
“The fact that cardi b admitted to drugging and robbing men she would take back to a hotel for sex blows my mind,” Twitter user @itsangelaa_xo wrote. “That’s not ‘keeping it real.’ that’s a crime.”
The hashtag #SurvivingCardiB was also created, alluding to the #SurvivingRKelly hashtag people used when the documentary of the same name aired on Lifetime detailing alleged sexual abuse by the R&B singer.
"Cardi B is canceled 🗣🗣🗣 she admitted that she use to lure men to hotels, drug, and Rob them,” Twitter user @LelaV89 wrote. "We canceled Rick Ross and he loss endorsements when he rapped about putting molly in a girl’s drink and taking her home to enjoy her while she didn’t even know it."
Cardi appeared unfazed by the blowback with a post on Twitter on Sunday.
And the next day, she tweeted, “IM THAT BITCH THEY LOVE TO HATE, IM THAT BITCH THEY HATE TO LOVE and I love it.”
But on Tuesday, Cardi posted a fuller explanation on Instagram, saying the footage was from three years ago and that she hasn't referenced that past behavior in her music "because [she's] not proud of it and feel[s] a responsibility not to glorify it."
Her full statement reads:
So I’m seeing on social media that a live I did 3 years ago has popped back up. A live where I talked about things I had to do in my past right or wrong that I felt I needed to do to make a living. I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world wit a perect past I always speak my truth I always own my shit. Im a part of a hip hop culture where you can talk about where you come from talk about the wrong things you had to do to get where you are. There are rappers that glorify murder violence drugs an robbing. Crimes they feel they had to do to survive. 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 I did at the time because I had very limited options. 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 men I spoke about in my live were men that I dated that I was involve with men that were conscious willing and aware. I have a past that we can’t change we all do.Representatives for Cardi B did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.