“With every ending comes a new beginning.” Cardi B couldn’t have been clearer in her message. The 31-year-old New York singer — whose father is Dominican and mother is Trinidadian — has announced on her Instagram profile that she is pregnant with what will be her third child, whose sex and expected date of birth she has not revealed. But the news has not come alone, but has been known just a few hours after it was learned that the artist has begun the process of divorcing her husband and father of her two oldest children — and, apparently, also the one on the way — the rapper Offset. They had been married for almost seven years, since September 2017.
This is the second time that the rapper, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, has filed for divorce from Offset (called Kiari Kendrell Cephus). She already did so almost four years ago, in September 2020, but later retracted her decision. The couple has had numerous crises, some of them very public, with constant accusations of cheating and public fights through their networks. On this occasion, a representative of the artist has confirmed it to the magazine Peopleexplaining that “it is not based on rumors of cheating, but rather it comes from a long time ago.”
According to Page Sixwhich has given the exclusive, the artist hopes to be able to keep custody of her two children, a five-year-old girl named Kulture and a boy who will turn three in September, Wave. “They have grown apart, and that has led her to make the decision more than anything else. It is something she wants to do,” a source close to both told the same outlet. “The distance has become stronger over time. It has become inevitable.” According to the same source, the singer wants to “turn the page in her life, without fights or drama, she wants everything to be peaceful.”
However, rumors of infidelity have been constant for months, and both have been sending each other cryptic messages on social networks for some time while they were still seen together. In December, the singer of I Like It and Aim She said in an Instagram Live that she had been “single for a minute” and that she intended to start the year “fresh” and “open”: “I’m curious about a new life and a new beginning. Yeah, I’m excited.” But the couple spent New Year’s Eve together, although she later said in a live chat with her followers that they functioned as separate individuals and not as a couple and that she did not consider them to have reconciled. “The answer to getting back together is not a great night at the club and fucking all night. We have to work on our shit, we have to work on our communication, there are things that he has to work on, there are things that I have to work on,” she said. “One fun night and guess what: the next day we’re arguing, the next day I’m blocking him. And the next day we don’t talk to each other for four days. I don’t want to continue that cycle.”
The divorce was announced on Wednesday evening and the pregnancy on Thursday morning (US time). The artist herself showed it with several photographs on your Instagram profilein front of more than 166 million followers, in a publication that in just over an hour has exceeded 2.5 million I like. In the text accompanying the images, taken with the New York night in the background, the rapper said she was “so grateful to have been able to share this season with you,” referring to the baby she is carrying. “You have brought me more love, more life, and above all, you have renewed my power. You have reminded me that I can have it all! You have reminded me that I never have to choose between life, love, and my passion. I love you so much and I can’t wait for you to witness what you have helped me achieve, what you have pushed me to do. It’s so much easier to accept the twists, turns, and trials of life lying down, but you, your brother, and your sister have shown me why it’s worth moving forward.” A multitude of singers, actors, models, and celebrities of all kinds have taken advantage of the publication to congratulate the artist.
The ever-excessive Cardi B and Offset met during a collaboration in 2016 and began dating in 2017, appearing at galas and events. A diamond pendant he gave her with the classic gesture the rapper makes with her hands and red nails confirmed their relationship. That October he proposed to her at a concert in Philadelphia with a huge diamond ring worth half a million dollars; just a few weeks later, several videos of the musician with different women were leaked, some naked, but she came to his defense. They married that year in a private wedding.
In April 2018 and during a performance in the program Saturday night Live Cardi B revealed that she was pregnant with her first child, Kulture Kiari, who was due in July of that year in Atlanta. She announced her second pregnancy at the BET Awards in June 2021, also on stage; her son, Wave Set, was due in September of that year. In addition, Offset has four other children. The eldest is Jordan, who will turn 15 in December and whose mother remains anonymous. He also has Kody and Kalea Marie, both nine years old and born 20 days apart in March 2015, the eldest from his relationship with Oriel Jamie, and the youngest with rapper Shya L’amour.
