American rapper Belcalis Almanzar, better known as Cardi B, posted a reaction on Tuesday to the ongoing backlash over a video uploaded several years ago in which she confesses to drugging men and stealing their money when she worked as a stripper.
In a text message uploaded to Instagram, Cardi B says she committed her crimes because she had "very limited options" at the time. Comparing herself to other rappers who "glorify murder violence drugs an[d] robbing," she says she's not proud of what she did, and she feels "responsibility not to glorify it."
"I was blessed to have been able to rise from that but so many women have not," the statement says.
"Whether or not they were poor choices at the time, I did what I had to do to survive."
According to the Grammy-winning rapper, she spoke about her crimes on a video because she's a part of "hip hop culture where you can talk about where you come from [and] talk about the wrong things you had to do to get where you are."
In the video, Cardi B confessed to committing crimes, saying she did so to survive. The video suddenly gained a second wind over the weekend, sparking a massive backlash and the sarcastic hashtag #SurvivingCardiB.
"I had to go strip, I had to go, ‘Oh yeah, you want to f**k me? Yeah yeah yeah, let's go back to this hotel,' and I drugged n*****s up and I robbed them," the rapper says on the video. "That's what I used to do."
Cardi B's 2018 debut album, "Invasion of Privacy," earned her a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, making her the only woman to win the award as a solo artist. Aside from that, she has won three American Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, nine BET Hip Hop Awards and a Billboard Music Award, and also holds two Guinness World Records — for most simultaneous Billboard US Hot 100 entries by a female artist and most simultaneous Billboard US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Top 10 entries by a female artist — shattering previous corresponding records held by Beyonce.