The 'Bodak Yellow' rapper, who admitted to have drugged and robbed men when she worked as a stripper, candidly spoke out about her prison stint when she was in middle school.

• Jun 3, 2019

AceShowbiz - Cardi B isn't shy of her dark past. The Bronx rapper recently made a shocking revelation that she went to jail as a teenager as she showed her graduation sign book. The 26-year-old star said she was arrested in middle school when she was still 13 for fighting.

In an Instagram video posted on Saturday, June 1, the "I Like It" hitmaker read some notes that her friends wrote for her. After reading the message which read, "...make sure you stay out of jail!" Cardi explained, "I "f**ked up in my last month of school at eighth year" because she was fighting, but noting that it wasn't serious.

Not all notes, however, shed lights on her negative story. One friend predicted her brighter future as she wrote that Cardi, who was called Bacardi at the time, was going to be "something big in da future."

Cardi grew up in The Bronx and was raised in the High bridge neighborhood of the South Bronx, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. As a youth, she joined the Bloods and has remained a gang member since the age of 16.

Three years ago, she admitted in Instagram Live that she used to drug and rob men when she worked as a stripper to "survive." "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. That's what I used to do," she said in the clip, which resurfaced in March of this year.

The video caused backlash and made the hashtag #SurvivingCardiB trending on Twitter. After receiving so much attention for her past, Cardi issued a statement via Instagram. "I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world with a perfect past. I always speak my truth. I always own my s**t," she defended herself.

While she admitted to her dark past, the Bronx femcee said she never glorified those crimes. "There are rappers that glorify murder, violence, drugs, and robbing. Crimes they feel they had to do to survive," she continued. "I never glorified the things I brought up in that live I never even put those things in my music because I'm not proud of it and feel a responsibility not to glorify it."

"I made the choices that I did at the same time because I had very limited options. I was blessed to have been able to rise from that but so many women have not. Whether or not they were poor choices at the time I did what I had to do to survive," she insisted. "I have a past that I can't change we all do."