Cardi B Said Stripping Saved Her After Getting Kicked Out, Quitting School, and Losing Her Job

Before her atmospheric rise to fame, Cardi B worked as a stripper. Her decision to work this job came after a series of disappointments in her life. When her parents kicked her out, she left college, and she lost her job, Cardi turned to stripping. She admitted this decision completely changed her life. 

Cardi B spoke about the way stripping changed her life

After she graduated from high school, Cardi and her sister got into a fight. In response, her parents kicked her out. She moved in with her boyfriend to stay afloat.

“He didn’t have a job, and I didn’t have a job,” she told Vogue. “Me and his mom used to smoke weed, and it’s like, you’re hungry but you’re high and you cannot even, like, f***ing eat food because you don’t have money for it.”

She enrolled in the Borough of Manhattan Community College and took a job at the Amish Market to support herself. After missing classes, though, an English teacher told her to drop his class. In response, she left school altogether. Not long after, she lost her job. 

Cardi then sought work at the New York Dolls strip club. She said this changed her life.

“At that time I just felt like my world was coming to an end,” she said. “I was that teenager who was like, I don’t need nobody. But my boyfriend kept cheating on me. He and I used to get into arguments, hitting each other a lot. Girls like to say, ‘I will beat a n****’s ass.’ I used to have that mentality. I used to hit my first boyfriend, until he started hitting me back and it just got out of control. But I started stripping, and I made enough money to move out.”

She worked this job until she was 23 years old. Not long after, her music career exploded.