The truth behind Cardi B's mental health struggles and marriage breakdown
Cardi B opens up about her struggles on Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast.
Image: Instagram
Cardi B recently had a candid conversation with Jay Shetty on his "On Purpose" podcast, and she didn't hold back about her challenging past year.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper opened up about how pressures from her career and the problems in her marriage led to a period of deep depression.
"I fell in the deepest depression that I had ever had," Cardi shared.
She added that during this time, she "couldn't function".
When talking about not being able to function, she meant more than just working: "I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do nothing. So that just halted everything that I had."
Cardi B's mental health struggles were tied directly to the end of her relationship with rapper Offset. She filed for divorce from him last August.
Looking back at the split, Cardi explained the sad realisation that her marriage was ending: "I felt the love dying," she said, noting this fading feeling was coming "From my end, from his end".
She also mentioned feeling very alone: "I was very lonely because I chose to be lonely". She knew she had to leave.
Cardi remembers thinking, "'You know what? I can't go through this anymore. I have to put a stop to it'". But ending it was painful. She explained that actually leaving happens when "your heart says so," not just when your mind decides.
She described the daily struggle to break the pattern: "But I was crying every day. I was hurt every day. I was thinking about it every single day".
The situation was especially difficult because she was pregnant with their third child, Blossom, when the relationship was failing.
She revealed that she felt the relationship was "dying" even while she had "a human growing in me."
She tried to improve herself and work on her "flaws" after she became pregnant with Blossom.
Tragically, she stated that Offset allegedly "took advantage" of her attempts to fix things, which "killed all hope of reconciling with him".
She struggled with heavy questions during this time: "What's life going to be without this person? What's life going to be without raising my last child? Without this person, what's life going to be with that person not being my friend anymore?".
The 33-year-old mother of four is separated from Offse,t but they are still working out the custody arrangements for their three children together.
She is currently expecting her first child with NFL player Stefon Diggs.
The severe emotional strain meant she had to delay her music plans. She was planning to release her follow-up album to “Invasion of Privacy” in 2024, but her mental state "halted everything that I had".
Luckily, she moved past that period and released her second album, “Am I the Drama?”, last month.
She believes overcoming the depression has made her stronger than ever before: "But I overcame that. And I am the strongest that I have ever been."