In this second part, the rapper Cardi B talks about her marriage to Offset, as well as her beginnings and American politics.

### Cardi B Talks About Her Marriage with Offset, Her Beginnings, and American Politics

After talking about her children in the first part of our portrait of Cardi B, the rapper now talks to us about their father.

In December, Cardi B filmed herself on Instagram Live, at her wits’ end. “This bastard really likes to mess with me when I’m at my most vulnerable. You’ve really done some nasty stuff to me after all these years! And it’s so crazy that I have to go online because every time I tell you something, you don’t take it seriously, and I’m fed up!”

She was talking about Offset, her husband of nearly seven years. Shortly before this clip, Cardi made a surprising revelation during another Instagram Live: she was actually single “for a minute now.”

But later, she revealed to the world that things were more complicated. In March, she clarified that despite the breakup, she was still married. She doesn’t include Offset in the list of people who live with her but later tells me, “When Offset comes, he comes.” In recent weeks, the couple attended a Knicks game and a Met Gala afterparty together. For Mother’s Day, Offset gave Cardi three diamond chains and covered her mansion with flowers.

Cardi B and Offset started dating in 2017, when Offset’s rap trio Migos was at its peak. She had difficult experiences with her boyfriends. “Once I cut ties with [one of them] and stopped caring about what he [thought] of me, I started making videos on Instagram. That’s how I became famous.”

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 had just gotten my first $200,000 in the bank,” she recalls. “He never made me feel small. In fact, he always said to me, ‘You’re a fucking superstar, look.'”

Cardi and Offset married at home in September 2017, although Offset later proposed to Cardi more ostentatiously at one of his shows 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, including Offset’s infidelity. Cardi told Vogue in 2020 that her husband had cheated on her. Later that year, she filed for divorce, explaining that it wasn’t due to this infidelity but to their arguments. “I got tired of arguing,” she said at the time. “I got tired of not seeing things eye to eye.” But less than two months later, Cardi withdrew her request, and the following year, they celebrated the arrival of their son, Wave.

In 2022, Cardi B was sentenced to 15 days of community service for attacking two bartenders in a Queens strip club four years earlier, which authorities said stemmed from a romantic rivalry. She pleaded guilty to the charges before the trial began, stating that she was setting an example of responsibility for her children. (She has faced other legal issues over the years, including a lawsuit against a defamatory blogger. She is currently accused in a lawsuit related to the alleged assault of a security guard, with the trial set for August.)

In Los Angeles, I ask Cardi what she values in her marriage and what has been difficult. The question seems to suck the air out of the room, but she responds calmly. “What I like is that we really appreciate each other, we support each other. I don’t really like talking to people. I’m not that sociable. If I need something from someone, it’s him who will talk. Because I don’t like asking.”

When she addresses the difficulties of her marriage, she emphasizes her own flaws: “We have our own problems. We come from two different worlds. Sometimes I can’t be… not that I can’t be a wife. It’s just that my career takes over my life. You see what I mean? My career comes first, and my children second. And sometimes I don’t realize that I put so many things before my relationship.”

“I don’t want to evolve,” Cardi continues. “I remember last year when we were going through a tough time. And he told me, ‘Release your album. You’re too stressed. When was the last time we took a vacation?’ And I replied, ‘I don’t have time for a vacation because that comes before everything.’ I have to take care of my business first, then my kids. The little things I have to take care of come next. Sometimes I feel like I put my relationship last.”

Once Cardi B releases her second album, she will finally go on tour, which means Kulture and Wave will miss her for long periods. Would she consider a residency, like Adele and Usher did? “No, you have to reach everyone in different states,” she replies. “That’s how I promoted my mixtape.”

“You’re not in the same position as when you did it back then,” I point out.

“No, but someone might not be able to afford a ticket to see you in a Vegas residency,” she explains. “Someone might afford a $200 ticket, but they can’t afford a $200 ticket and a flight. And you have to reach everyone. That’s why I feel like a lot of these people don’t have a fan base because they never reach the people. They became famous, but they never went to Greenville, North Carolina. They never went to Baton Rouge.”

When she became popular as a dancer, she remembers performing in small clubs for only $2,000, traveling the country in her former manager’s PT Cruiser. As a rapper, she recalls: “I went to Mississippi, a small town, where they had a slap-fighting contest. I had the best time of my life. I remember once going to Memphis and, oh my God, I couldn’t even see because there was so much smoke. There was a banana-sucking contest. I loved it. Once in North Carolina, I literally played in a barn. There were so many people in there.”

One of the ways Cardi B measures her success is the speed at which ordinary people consume her music. Take “Like What (Freestyle),” which she released after an online hiatus. It debuted at number 38 on the Hot 100, and while some might have had higher expectations for it, she finds it satisfying: “I think that’s good for a freestyle. I feel good because every day, I see so many people TikToking, making videos, rapping. So [I know] real people are listening to my music.”

Cardi has also spoken out on social issues, from New York City and state government to social security and immigration. Interested in politics, she became a sought-after commentator, supporting and interviewing Bernie Sanders and then Joe Biden in their presidential campaigns.

Then, last November, she said she would never do it again, whether for a president or a candidate. In March, she told Los Angeles radio host Big Boy that she wouldn’t even vote in the next presidential elections. She tells me she’s sincere. Before, she saw Trump as a terrible threat, but under Biden, she felt “layers and layers of disappointment” due to what she considers poor domestic and foreign management. The cost of living is too high, wages are too low, and not much is being done to fix it, she says. “I feel like people have been betrayed. It’s like you don’t care about anyone. Then I’m really upset by the fact that there are solutions. There’s a solution. I know there’s a solution because you spend billions of dollars on anything.”

After President Biden insisted in October that the U.S. could fund both Israel and Ukraine in their respective wars against Gaza and Russia, Cardi spoke out against this idea. “America doesn’t pay for endless wars in countries that have been in trouble for a long time. There are countries where children are killed every day, but because the U.S. doesn’t benefit from it, they don’t help them. I don’t like America wearing this superhero cape. We’ve never done anything to be superheroes. We’ve done things for our own comfort.”

When talking about politics, Cardi B is careful about what she says. With her life under the microscope, she has recently wondered how open she should be about anything. The impulses that have made her both the darling of the public and the target of tabloids are similar: she has always had a willingness to have strong opinions and startling honesty, to be imperfect in front of the camera, to disclose what is typically embarrassing. Today, even for her album, she hesitates. “I really want to talk about the life changes I’ve faced over the last six or seven years,” she says about her new music. “But I feel like people don’t deserve to know because they use my pain against me.”

I ask her what she does to take care of herself. “Being at home,” she replies. “When I wasn’t on social media anymore and nobody knew what I was doing, I was often at peace. But what am I going to do? Never post or work again because it’s peaceful? No. I don’t want my daughter or son to ever give up on something because they can’t handle the pressure of what people say about them. I have to set an example. It’s like I’m saying to myself, ‘You will never break me.’ Because I have something to prove to myself. I also have to prove something to those who hate me. I have to prove it to my own kids.”