Eve has opened up about her brief stint performing in a strip club while working hard to make her rap career take off.
The 45-year-old made a splash when she dropped her debut studio album in 1999, with the record flying straight to the top of the charts.
Reflecting on her pre-fame efforts, the Who’s That Girl musician revealed that she took a job at a strip club in the Bronx when she was 17-years-old, as well as a retail position, to make ends meet.
However, speaking to People Magazine to promote her upcoming memoir, Who’s That Girl?, she shared that she quit after two months, admitting she was ‘lazy’ with her dancing efforts.
‘In my head, I was thinking, “I need to be grown now, and it’s the quickest way I can get out of the house,”’ she said. ‘But I was so bad at it. I was lazy.’
Eve also met fellow rapper MA$E at the club where she worked, and listened to him when he suggested that she should leave the job to focus on her music.
But it wasn’t quite smooth sailing for the Let Me Blow Ya Mind star, who was then signed to Dr Dre’s Aftermath label, before she was dropped very shortly after.
‘I think it was a huge blessing in disguise,’ she continued. ‘I needed to be humbled. I think a lot of the reason why I got dropped by Dre is that I was so, “When is it my turn? When are you going to put me on?” So extra Philly feisty.
‘I needed to be sent back home to be like, “Okay, well, if you got this opportunity again, who do you want to be? What do you want to show the world?”’
As well as music, Eve has gone on to explore the acting side of the industry, landing roles in Barbershop, Queens, Daytime Divas, Glee and XXX.
She has also been focusing on her family life, after tying the knot with husband Maximillion Cooper in 2014, with the pair welcoming their first child, Cooper, in 2022.
The businessman also has four children from a previous marriage, with the rapper sharing a close bond with his brood.
Opening up on motherhood in a chat with Metro.co.uk, she explained that she felt like an entirely new person after her son’s arrival.
‘It’s the most amazing thing but the energy levels ain’t the same,’ she told us. ‘I definitely have to plan out what I’m going to do, like I’m going to stay home and sleep so I can do that tomorrow, but it’s literally the best thing in the world.
‘Life is different and some people told me that. One of my friends said to me you’re not only going to birth a baby, you’re going to birth a new you and I kind of got it. But I am [a new me], it’s totally different, everything I think about is for him. Everything.’
The Who’s That Girl rapper added: ‘All I want is for him to have the most incredible life, I want to do everything I can for him to keep the light in his eyes and the smile on his face, period.’
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