#SurvivingCardiB: First male victim confirms being drugged and robbed by the 'Bodak Yellow' singer
Days after rapper Cardi B's controversial claims emerged of her having drugged and robbed some of her sexual partners, her first male victim came out on Tuesday allegedly confirming that he had indeed been drugged, raped and robbed by the 'Bodak Yellow' singer.
Cardi’s revelation came in an Instagram Live video which resurfaced over the weekend, wherein she claimed she had drugged her sexual partners and robbed them in the past. The singer, in the video, appeared emotional while explaining the lengths she had to go to make it big in the music industry. At one point in the video, she said: "I had to go strip, I had to go, 'Oh yeah, you want to f**k me? Yeah, let’s go back to this hotel'. And I drugged n***as up and I robbed them. That’s what I used to do."
Two days after the controversial video resurfaced, a New York resident Kevin Smith came forward confirming the singer's claims in the video. Smith claimed that he had once invited Cardi B back to his room because he was "feeling her" and then went to the bathroom.
"I was in New York about five years ago training and my trainer suggested we go to a strip club. Normally, I would have turned him down but this time I decided to go. So, boom, we go the strip club and I meet Cardi. I'm feeling her and convinced her to go back to the room with me to have a drink," Smith said in a statement shared by The Shade Room.
He said that he only remembered the singer twerking on him and loud music when he came out of the bathroom that night. Smith added that when he gained consciousness the next morning, he found a used condom and his personal items missing.
"I had been drinking already so I had to piss, I slid into the bathroom and came back and finished my drink. Last thing I remembered was she was twerking on me, music blasting and that was it. The next morning, I saw a used condom on the floor and then I noticed all the cash I had, which was about $850, my Louis Vitton belt and my iPod touch was missing."
He added, "I tried calling her several times but I soon realized she gave me a google voice number. I know she did it but I couldn't prove it so I never went to file the charges mainly because I did not want my fiancée to know what had happened so I took my 'L'. I can't lie, it was certainly traumatizing and as a man you never want to admit you were taken advantage of. No man wants to say #MeToo," Smith added.
According to the state of New York, Smith is still within the time frame to press charges according to the statute of limitations. Smith, at this time, has said that he will not press charges against the singer and wants to move forward with his life.
The rapper, after receiving heavy backlash over her claims, released a statement on Instagram saying that the video was from three years ago and that she was not proud of her past but did what was necessary for her survival. "All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future," she wrote in her caption.
"So I’m seeing on social media that a [Instagram] live I did 3 years ago has popped back up. A live where I talked about things I had to do in my past right or wrong that I felt I needed to do to make a living."
The singer added, "I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world wit[h] a perfect past I always speak my truth I always own my shit. I’m a part [sic] of a hip hop culture where you can talk about where you come from, talk about the wrong thing you had to do to get where you are," the singer said.
"There are rappers that glorify murder violence drugs an[d] robbing. Crimes they feel they had to do to survive. 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," she said.
"I made the choices that I did at the 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. The men I spoke about n my live were men that I dated that I was involve[d] with men that were conscious willing and aware. I have a past that I can’t change we all do," she added.