Amber Rose Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Brush it off, bruh. Amber Rose penned an op-ed for Time, appropriately titled "Amber Rose: How I Learned to Stop Caring What People Think," that was published on Thursday, January 28, the morning after Kanye West tweeted about her stripper past in his crazy Twitter feud with Wiz Khalifa.
"Ever since high school, I’ve been called a slut," Rose, 32, wrote in the piece. "All the boys were attracted to me — that wasn’t my fault! Then, when I started getting famous, the shaming got even worse. All these messed up stories came out about me, and I was like, 'That’s not true! I’m not that kind of girl!' But even things I had done — things a man would never be judged for — got me lots of hate."
The former model rose to fame in 2008 when she dated West, but their relationship ended in 2010 — and not on good terms. West moved on with now-wife Kim Kardashian, while Rose married rapper Wiz Khalifa in 2013. She and Khalifa, 28 — who split in 2014 — have a 2-year-old son, Sebastian.
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"After my ex-husband Wiz Khalifa and I got a divorce, I’d go out for a date at a restaurant like any normal single human and people would say, 'Man, she’s such a ho. She’s out at restaurants with guys,'" Rose recalled of life after her split. "Then they would see my ex-husband with a bunch of women. They would say, 'He’s the man! That’s so cool.' So when I went on a date, I’m a whore, and when he’s piling girls in a car, he’s the man? There’s something wrong here. It wasn’t just men saying these types of things. There were a lot of women saying hateful things to me. I was getting torn down constantly. But in the past year, I’ve just started not caring."
Amber Rose and Kanye West at the Dior Menswear Autumn Winter 2010–2011 Collection in Paris. Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images
Rose wrote that people made disparaging comments about her history as a stripper, which is exactly what West did on Wednesday during his Twitter rant. "4th you let a stripper trap you," the "Runaway" rapper, 38, tweeted at Khalifa. "5th I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years."
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Rose responded on Twitter with a raunchy retort of her own an hour later. "Awww @kanyewest are u mad I'm not around to play in ur a--hole anymore? #FingersInTheBootyAssBitch," she tweeted. "Lol @kanyewest Now u wanna delete ur tweets cuz Muva has arrived? #TwitterFingers #UrGettingBodiedByAStripperN---a." Rose continued to flaunt her DNGAF attitude that same day when she stepped out for a workout in L.A. in a rather provocative T-shirt.
Still, strangers continue to slut-shame Rose. "People would actually say things like, 'Who would ever love you? You were a stripper. Why are you in relationships?'" Rose revealed in her op-ed. "And I used to feel like I had to explain that maybe it was because I’m a good person. But I realized that I can’t make everyone believe. And I can’t talk to everyone and tell them who I really am. They’re still going to have their own opinions. If you know me, you love me. If you don’t know me, you might love me, but you might not — and that’s cool. And you know what? Now I sleep like a baby at night."
The takeaway was simple: "What I’ve realized is that, when you care too much, you’re not living at your full potential. When you really stop caring about what people say, that’s when you really start living. It’s such an amazing feeling," she advised readers. "Before you judge someone — especially another woman — put yourself in her shoes and also look at your past. That’s what a lot of women fail to do. They’re so quick to call another girl names, but it’s like: You know what? There may have been a time where you looked back and said, 'I probably shouldn’t have done that.' Does that make you a ho? No, it makes you a human."
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