Cardi B is opening up about her 7 year marriage to rapper Offset with Rolling Stone.
IN DECEMBER, CARDI filmed herself on Instagram Live while she was at her wit’s end, and it was gutting.
“This motherfucker really likes to play games with me when I’m at my most vulnerable time,” she said.
Only her head above the neck and her slender, frantic, stiletto-nailed fingers were in the frame as she hollered, her voice cracking and face slipping off camera as she went on.
“You really been doing me dirty after so many fucking years!” she yelled. “And it’s so crazy that I got to go to the fucking internet because whenever the fuck I tell you something, you don’t take shit seriously, and I’m so tired of it! I’m so fucking tired of this bitch-ass nigga!”
She was talking about Offset, her husband of nearly seven years.
Not long before that clip, Cardi had made a surprising revelation on another Instagram Live — she’d actually been single “for a minute now.”
But later, she’d reveal to the world (and to me) that things are more complicated.
In February, she went on a Valentine’s Day date with him and was caught trying to hide makeup smudged from making out.
The next month, she’d clarify that despite the breakup, she was still married.
She doesn’t include Offset when she lists the people who live with her, but later tells me, “When Offset comes around, he comes around, so he’s a helping hand, too.”
In recent weeks, the couple attended a Knicks game and a Met Gala afterparty together.
For Mother’s Day, Offset gifted Cardi three diamond chains and covered her mansion in flowers.
Cardi B and Offset began dating in 2017, when Offset’s rap trio Migos were hip-hop’s hottest and most trend-setting unit.
She’d had some rough dating experience with boyfriends — including one who’d overpower her in their physical fights, and another who made her feel she was too broke, too skinny, too loud — somehow too much yet never enough, she says.
“Once I cut him off and I stopped caring about what he [thought] about me,” she says, “I started doing videos on Instagram. That’s how I got famous, because it was like, ‘Fuck him.’ ”
In Offset, she finally found a partner who built her up instead of breaking her down.
“When I met Offset, he was super rich and I just got my fucking first $200,000 in the bank,” she recalls. “He never made me feel like I was little to him. He actually always used to tell me, ‘You a fucking superstar, watch.’ ”
Cardi and Offset got married at home in sweats in September 2017 (Cardi’s white, with metallic trim, Offset’s black, with white checkerboarding down the sides), though Offset later proposed to Cardi flashily at one of her shows, complete with an eight-carat ring.
Cardi moved in with Offset in Atlanta, his hometown, but hated it, feeling isolated.
The couple appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2018, but there were other challenges — not the least of which was Offset’s infidelity.
Cardi told Vogue in 2020 that her husband had cheated but they had worked through it. Later that year, Cardi filed for a divorce, explaining that it was not due to cheating, but misalignment.
“I just got tired of fucking arguing,” she said then. “I got tired of not seeing things eye to eye.” But less than two months later, Cardi withdrew her claim, and the next year, they celebrated Wave’s arrival together.
In L.A., I ask Cardi what she cherishes in her marriage and what’s been difficult. The question seems to suck the air out of the room, but she answers calmly.
“The part I love is that we really like each other, like a support system. We’re really both each other’s cheerleader. I don’t really like talking to people. I’m not as social. If I want something from somebody, he’ll be the one that will talk. Because I don’t like asking.”
When she gets to the challenges in her marriage, I’m surprised to hear her zero in on her own shortcomings.
“We have our own bad stuff,” she says. “We’re from two different worlds. Sometimes I cannot be … not that I cannot be a wife. It’s just like, my career takes my life. You know what I’m saying? My career comes first, then my kids come second. And then sometimes I don’t realize that I’m putting so many things before my relationship.”
I tell her that sounds accountable, like she’s saying, There’s room for me to grow in the relationship too.
“I don’t want to grow,” Cardi says. “I remember last year when we was going through our hard time. And it’s like, ‘Put your album out. You’re overstressing. When was the last time we went on a vacation?’ And it’s like, ‘I don’t got time to go on a vacation, because this comes first.’ This comes first and then my kids come second. The little things I have to take care of then comes. I sometimes feel like I do probably put my relationship last.” (Later, she’ll tweak that list of priorities — more on that in a moment.)
I ask Cardi what she’s decided to do about her marriage.
“I think it through. We think it through, because we do love each other. It’s not even about love. We’re best friends. And it’s like, ‘OK. Well, there was a time that I didn’t have a best friend, or I didn’t have a support system.’ It’s not even about ‘How do you leave a partner?’ How do you stop talking to your best friend?”
About her kids:
Despite the trials that came with motherhood, Cardi wouldn’t change a thing, telling me once she became pregnant with Kulture, God had blessed her three times over.
First of all, she was already rich. “Then, it’s like, ‘Damn, you sent me a baby at 25, the age that I always want to have a kid.’
Then I took a gender test and it was a girl.
I always wanted a girl.” Though she was “always afraid to have boys,” she conquered that fear with Wave. “It’s like it’s meant to be. The stars align. My kids are the best decisions I ever made.”
