Cardi B has thought further ahead than most 33-year-olds, and what she found waiting there unsettled her.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, the rapper described the calculation that pushed her toward building businesses outside of music. Royalties, she realized, would leave her children in a position she did not want for them. “I was panicking,” she said, per PEOPLE, explaining that her kids would inherit music royalties they would likely spend years arguing over with other parties.
She acknowledged there would be property and liquid assets as well, but framed those as insufficient on their own. The question she kept returning to was what she could leave that belonged cleanly to them. Her haircare line, Grow Good, is part of that answer.
The concern reflects something specific about how music money works. Royalty streams involve publishers, labels, co-writers and estates, which means heirs often inherit a legal position rather than an asset. Artists who have watched catalogs get tied up in litigation after a death tend to plan differently, and Cardi appears to be doing exactly that while still in her thirties.
She became a mother in 2018 with the birth of daughter Kulture, now 8, followed by son Wave, 5, and daughter Blossom, 2, all with estranged husband Offset.
The two were together on and off for seven years before separating in July 2024, after which Cardi filed for divorce a second time. Her fourth child, a son with Stefon Diggs, arrived last November.
Motherhood has reshaped her financial thinking more than her personal style. Speaking with E! News earlier this year, she was blunt about the latter, saying her kids “haven’t changed me for s–t,” while conceding she adjusts what she wears to school functions.
Kulture has also picked up her mother’s love of fashion, often dipping into Cardi’s closet. But Cardi has set some boundaries, Kulture can borrow the clothes and shoes, but the handbags are off-limits after one was previously written on. Cardi joked that teaching her daughter to clean up after herself could be the next rule.
