Amber Rose is opening up about her past.
The actress — who has previously spoken out about working as a stripper — revealed that she once tried selling crack to make ends meet for her family, but was stopped before she could get involved in the drug scene.
“I usually don’t tell people this but I tried selling crack in my neighborhood,” Rose, 35, admitted to Van Lathan on hisThe Red Pillpodcast.
“They said I was gonna get robbed, I was a girl and I was too pretty, and it wasn’t going to happen,” she added of why she didn’t end up being a drug dealer.
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But Rose explained that it took her awhile to publicly address her drug experiences because of the double standards in society pertaining to men and the pass they get for doing similar controversial activities in order to survive.
“When it comes to me, do I have to give you this story to understand? It’s been nine years since I been famous, I never told that to nobody,” she said of her past. “It was a hard time in the beginning, and I became a stripper very young. I made that decision, nobody in my family put that on me.”
“I don’t really think people understand how ‘hood I grew up… the s— that I had to overcome, and even overcome after I became famous,” she added. “My life has never been easy… [But] it did push me to that limit to go fend for my family.”
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Now that Rose has established herself as a successful model and actress, she has used her platform — and past — for good.
Three years ago, she founded the Amber Rose Slut Walk. Rose and hundreds of supportersgathered in L.A.for her rally — its mantra is “strippers have feelings, too” — as a reminder to the world, as one sign put it, that “My Clothes Are Not My Consent.” It has since become an annual event.
The idea behind the walk is to convey the message that double standards and blaming victims of sexual assault and rape perpetuates a culture of sexual violence.
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Participants dress “how they want” as a way to show awareness that people should not be judged for their outfits — something Rose has beenespecially supportive of,both vocally and on Instagram.
“Regardless of how you dress, that doesn’t make you a slut, it doesn’t make you a whore,” Rose previously told PEOPLE. “Those are all just derogatory labels they men and women use against other women to put us down for being confident in our sexuality without even knowing our past sexual history.”
source: people.com
