Cardi B gets back on the pole… in her feature film debut!
The Bodak Yellow rapper is set to appear in Hustlers, a flick co-produced by costar Jennifer Lopez!
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The project — written and directed by Lorene Scafaria — is about a crew of savvy former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
Based on the 2016 New York Magazine article “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler, the movie — also starring Constance Wu, Riverdale‘s Lili Reinhart, Julia Stiles, and Keke Palmer — is expected to begin production later this month in New York City.
Scafaria told Deadline on Tuesday:
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with this dynamic group of women… We’re grateful to have assembled such a powerhouse cast and can’t wait to start filming at the end of the week.”
Lopez and Cardi previously collaborated on the DJ Khaled track Dinero, which earned the trio a 2018 MTV Video Music Award for Best Collaboration.
Of course, the Money rapper has been open about her exotic dancer past.
In a 2018 interview with Howard Stern, she said stripping “saved” her, explaining:
“A lot of people want me to lie and say I hated [stripping] and went through so much and don’t recommend it. But I don’t tell girls not to do it. I’m not even going to front, it really saved me. Before I worked at a strip club I was a cashier at a market. I got fired and I couldn’t move out of my situation. I didn’t want to live with my ex-boyfriend at his mother’s house anymore. But I couldn’t even afford a room. I never made $300 a week. My boss said you have a nice body you should just work across the street. You’ll make so much money. He was Turkish. I was really scared because I didn’t know the type of things that go down in there. I was ashamed that I was dancing naked for the first couple of months. I used to cry after work. I could only imagine how embarrassed my parents would be. Imagery of my mom and my dad would enter my head when I gave lap dances. But then I would think I made $500 today then $1,500 then $2,000. I told my parents I was babysitting some rich white people’s kids.”
However, she did reveal that working at a “white strip club” felt “very racist.”
“I worked in a white strip club and it felt very racist. But even in the Black, urban clubs you could still feel the same way just not as harsh as the white club. The Russian girls were so loved and I got the crummy customers. I always came in last. I’m the darkest one in my family and my hair was short and kinky. Growing up I looked different from my cousins. Then when I was 13 or 14, I loved myself and my body and I knew how to manage my hair. But then [at the strip club] I was back again to feeling like I don’t belong there. You start experiencing it again.”
Despite her rough past, the now-26-year-old believes the music industry “is way more cutthroat than a strip club.”
“I started stripping when I was 18 turning 19. I bonded with a couple of girls there but some of them were cutthroat. But I’m grateful that I saw how people were, how women were, early. This [music] industry is way more cutthroat than any stripper. It was almost like a training program. This [music] industry is more cutthroat than a strip club, than high school or even the streets.”
We can’t wait to see her on the big screen!
[Image via Regina Wagner/Future Image/Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.]