CULTURE

Cardi B Discusses the Postpartum Depression She Experienced After Welcoming Daughter Kulture

“I thought I was going to avoid it.”

Feb. 7, 2019

MICKALENE THOMAS

In July 2018, just a few weeks after giving birth to Kulture Kiari, her daughter with husband Offset, Cardi B canceled her scheduled tour with Bruno Mars, writing in a statement, “I think I underestimated this whole mommy thing.” Shortly after that, she took to Instagram to hint at the postpartum depression she’d been experiencing. Now, in her cover interview for the March 2019 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Cardi is opening up even further about the so-called “baby blues,” which she says clouded her life for several months after welcoming Kulture, who she calls KK.

“I thought I was going to avoid it,” Cardi said. “When I gave birth, the doctor told me about postpartum, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing good right now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’ But out of nowhere, the world was heavy on my shoulders.” The depression kept her from breastfeeding Kulture—”It was too hard,” she said—despite her doing so in the “Money” music video.

She’s since come out of that “haze,” with some help from her mother, one of the only people Cardi trusts to babysit, but she’s still adjusting to her new life as a mom. “For some reason, I still don’t feel like my body’s the same,” she said. “I feel like I don’t have my balance right yet. When it comes to heels, I’m not as good at walking anymore. I feel like I’m holding a weight on me. I don’t know why because I’m skinnier than I’ve ever been. But there’s an energy I haven’t gotten back yet that I had before I was pregnant. It’s just the weirdest thing.”

And though Cardi made a name for herself largely by posting her signature off-the-cuff videos on Instagram, she said motherhood might convince her to back away from social media. “Sometimes I’ll see something online and it’ll piss me off, and then my baby will start crying or something, and it’s like, ‘You know what? I’ve got to deal with the milk. Forget this,’” she said. “I’ve noticed that every time you respond, you just make things worse, so I’m over it. I’m just over it. I really don’t need it, and sometimes it just brings chaos to my brain.” That chaos is definitely not something she needs: “I don’t care about anything anymore—just my career and my kid,” she said.

Last fall, the rapper spoke to W about some of the more surprising effects of giving birth. “People don’t really talk about what you go through after pregnancy. Like, they don’t tell you that you get stitches down there or that your first two weeks you’re constipated. Or that you get contractions because of breastfeeding. I wasn’t expecting that. When Kulture was born, I felt like I was a kid again; everything was making me cry, and I needed a lot of love. I be feeling like, ‘Do babies know who’s they mom?’ I feel like babies love whoever is giving them the milk, and I want to give the milk the whole time. I want her to know me,” she said. “I feel better now, but sometimes I just feel so vulnerable, like I’m not ready for the world yet. It’s weird.”