AceShowbiz - Offset sat down for a candid conversation on Popcast from The New York Times, opening up about his music, his past relationship with Cardi B, the 2022 murder of his close friend and collaborator Takeoff, a shooting outside a Florida casino, and his gambling habits.

The interview was conducted by hosts Joe Coscarelli and Jon Caramanica. Across the conversation, Offset reflected on how he has tried to keep his focus on the music despite the noise surrounding his personal life.

"When I made this album, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna just focus on this music. I don't really hear all the noise. And like, I am a great person. I know this. I have Black women around me that know I'm a great man at the end of the day. And I got children that I look out for, that I'm a great father. And sometimes other things blur that, and it bothers me," Offset said on the show. "Because you gotta understand, when I first started, I was the knucklehead in the group. I was going to jail. I ain't been to jail in over 10 years. I straightened that, and it was so hard to stray from that in my career and to become a professional and to grow up. My music is my pulse, my heart. That's all I have."

When Coscarelli asked whether he feels a villain narrative has been built around him because of his personal life and romance, Offset pointed to the past relationship rather than any ongoing conflict.

"It's the past relationship. What's so crazy is we good, me and her good. We worked through our kids. It was a patch of time that happened. We have children. We see the bigger thing. Me and her cool. But it's more the people, you know what I'm saying, more than what's actually happened in real life. Like, I have no issues with my ex. I salute everything that she's doing," he said.

Asked by Caramanica whether people amplify the negative and whether he is trying to show that things are good, Offset said he is considerate of Cardi B and respects her privacy.

"Nah, because I'm very considerate of her, too. That don't need to happen. As long as I'm good with her and she's good with me and our kids good, it's not a show. I might take the hit from not showing it, but I respect her privacy, what she got going on in her world. It's two different worlds now. I would never wanna conjoin that and put her in discomfort — or sometimes it's the people or the fans that's making it more discomfort than anything," he said.

The conversation also turned to gambling. Coscarelli asked whether he feels he has a problem, and Offset acknowledged that he likes to gamble and feels he needs to stop, while drawing a distinction between his situation and someone who sells things without the money to back it up.

"I'm gonna be a million percent real with y'all. I like to gamble, right? I feel like I need to stop. I need to stop. But I feel like a problem is when you, like, selling [expletive], you ain't got the money to do it. I'm doing this [expletive] to get away. And I do like to gamble, to be honest. A lot of plays I get, you think I'm gambling, and I've been paid a lot of money to maybe promote it," he said.

Offset also spoke about the shooting outside a Florida casino, recalling that he called his mother so she would not hear about it from the street, though his phone died. She flew in quickly and held him accountable, telling him he was being a coward to his kids by making choices that affect everybody and that he could be dead. She told him he is the savior to the family and that he needs discipline.