Cardi B has always been unapologetically herself, whether that’s speaking her truth about vagina butterflies, asking us to let her fat in peace or keeping it real about why she shouldn’t have to explain her identity to anyone. In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, Cardi explained that her honesty about her life extends to her past working as a stripper, too — as it should.
In her interview, Cardi said people ask her why she always brings up the fact that she used to be a stripper, seeming to imply that they think she should keep it quiet. But Cardi said she talks about it because it’s true, and there’s no shame in that.
“People say, ‘Why do you always got to say that you used to be a stripper? We get it,’” Cardi said. The answer to the question, she said, is “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.”
Basically, Cardi is saying that she talks about working as a stripper because now that she’s in a position that people consider to be successful, she wants them to understand that she deserves their respect now, and deserved it when she was stripping, too. She’s been open about how she chose to start stripping when she was of legal age to do so. Cardi’s is an important point, and commentary on the pervasively negative attitudes toward sex work in society. As Tansy Breshears wrote in an essay for The Root, stigma surrounding sex work not only tells us that sex work isn’t real work, it tells us that sex workers are disposable.
“Stigma and shaming are real. They erase people from our minds and consciousness by reminding us, “This person was a prostitute. I don’t need to care about them,” Tansy wrote.
We see this in pop culture, when sex workers are the butt of crude and violent jokes. We see it in real life when someone’s job as a sex worker is brought up after they are killed — a seeming implication that they somehow deserved the violence that ended their lives. And Tansy also pointed out that it’s stigma that forces Cardi B to continuously talk about her past work as a stripper, and that makes her insist on not being ashamed of it.
“This is life knowing that, if ever harm came to you as a sex worker, no one would care,” Tansy wrote. “This is, even after her success and accolades, still bringing up Cardi B’s past as a dancer in order to distract from her present success as a musician and now fiancee to Offset of Migos.”
But this isn’t the first time Cardi has spoken about stripping. She’s been open about it many times, and has said it was a positive force in her life. In an interview with VladTV, Cardi said that she started stripping to escape domestic violence. While she said there were negative aspects, like the body insecurity she developed, she opened up about how stripping changed her life for the better.
“It really saved me from a lot of things,” Cardi said of stripping. “When I started stripping, you know, I went back to school. The only reason I stopped going to school is because I met a guy.”
In an interview with the Guardian , Cardi pointed out that she wouldn’t be shamed for becoming a rapper after a previous career as a cashier, so why should she be shamed for her past work as a stripper?
“Would people feel some type of way if I was a cashier-turned-rapper?” she said. “People want me to be so full of shame that I used to dance. I would never be ashamed of it. I made a lot of money, I had a good time and it showed me a lot — it made me open my eyes about how people are, how men are, about hunger and passion and ambition.”
The point is that, just like Cardi B shouldn’t have to explain that she is black, she shouldn’t have to explain that she’s not ashamed of her old job. Cardi B’s previous job says nothing about her intelligence, her worth, or how much respect she does or doesn’t deserve, but she shouldn’t have to tell you that.
