Rapper Eve has revealed that before she was a platinum-selling hip-hop artist, actress and celebrated talk show host, she worked as a teenage stripper.
But she adds that she was so lazy that she was always trying to get the other girls to fill in for her so she could focus on her rapping.
“I’m standing topless in front of a middle-aged man, smiling with my legs spread, as if he’s ready for me to climb on top of him and start rubbing him,” the woman, now 45, writes in her new memoir. Who is that girl?
‘I’m over it now, but I sit and swing my legs around him… reluctantly.’
She then describes how he whispers in her ear what he would like to do to her, before she also whispers her own proposal, one he probably wasn’t expecting.
Eve rose to fame with hits like Let Me Blow Ya Mind with Gwen Stefani (above) and Gangsta Lovin’ with Alicia Keys.
She only lasted two months as a stripper. “Everything I experienced made me feel guilty”
“Let me rap for you,” she says, adding that if he doesn’t like it, she’ll give him a free lap dance.
The ruse worked, and by the time he was 17 and escaping a crowded home and a stepfather he didn’t get along with, he was soon making more money than he’d ever seen.
“I step off this potentially hellish ride triumphant, knowing I just rapped for this man with my tits out. And he’s still tipping me when I didn’t even give him a lap dance,” she writes.
Eve, also known as Eve Jihan Jeffers, rose to fame with hits like Let Me Blow Ya Mind with Gwen Stefani and Gangsta Lovin’ with Alicia Keys.
But he only lasted two months as a stripper.
“Everything I went through made me feel guilty,” she writes. “And depressed. I knew I didn’t have to be there… some girls were there to feed their families. They had children to look after and a roof to pay for.
‘I had a mother and stepfather who didn’t pressure me to do anything, except maybe continue my education after I graduated from high school.
“But trying to move out and fund a rap career meant I needed money fast, apparently half-naked and in stilettos.”
“I didn’t really mind being naked and dancing alone,” she says, “but everything else was annoying. I was the laziest stripper.”
In 2020, Eve (far right) was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for co-hosting CBS’s The Talk alongside Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Carrie Ann Inaba.
Her debut album Let There Be Eve… released in 1999, went double platinum and reached number one on the Billboard 200.
None of her relatives in Philadelphia had any idea what was going on, mainly because she joined other dancers a couple of times a week and drove 95 miles to New York to perform at the Golden Lady in the Bronx.
“My mother had no idea this was going on… Somehow I managed to keep this new double life of partial nudity a secret,” he writes.
“I didn’t really mind walking around naked and dancing alone,” she adds, “but everything else was really annoying.”
“I was the laziest stripper. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to touch anyone, and of course I didn’t want to be touched.”
He even started hiding from the club owner to avoid doing his spin on the pole.
“Each dancer had a set time when they had to get up on the bar and dance,” she writes. “I didn’t want to do that, so I swapped schedules with other dancers.”
Eventually, the novelty wore off (and not before its time).
“Even the customers knew I didn’t belong there. Nobody wants to see the sad stripper dancing.”
Luckily, she was soon discovered by rapper Ma$e, who had just signed to Puff Daddy’s label. She rapped for him that night and never returned to the strip club.
‘We spent the night jamming out to beats and driving around the city, rapping in his car. It was the lyrical exercise I needed in my life and it was the most fun I’ve had in New York City since I started dancing there.
“I knew I couldn’t go back to my old life.”
“My mother had no idea this was going to happen… Somehow I managed to keep this new double life of partial nudity a secret,” the singer writes.
Her memoir, Who’s That Girl, named after one of her biggest hits, is due out this month.
The next time she saw him, he had signed with Ruff Ryders and had begun recording his debut album, Let There Be Eve… Released in 1999, it went double platinum and reached number one on the Billboard 200.
Eve was the third female rapper to achieve that honor, after Lauren Hill and Foxy Brown.
They went on to release three more albums before turning to acting and appearing on TV shows such as Jane The Virgin and Empire. In 2020, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for co-hosting CBS’s The Talk alongside Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Carrie Ann Inaba.
But she didn’t want her past as a stripper to be a guilty little secret that would “come back to bite me in the ass in the future.”
So she spoke about it in her first magazine cover story, before preparing her mother to finally learn the truth.
‘I called her and said, “Mom, I need you to read this article and then call me so we can talk about it.”
“After reading it, she called me back. I was surprised that she wasn’t angry with me; she understood why I had done it. She knew I wanted to make money and she was already suspicious when I was going back and forth between Philadelphia and New York for no reason.”
Who’s That Girl?: An Autobiography by Eve is published by Hanover Square Press