Eve Reflects on Failed Stripper Career in Memoir ‘Who’s That Girl?’

In her upcoming memoir, Who’s That Girl?, Philadelphia rapper and actress Eve opens up about her time working as a stripper in a Bronx club at the age of 17.

Born Eve Jeffers, she moved to New York City from Philly to chase her dream of a music career but soon found herself juggling different hustles, including a retail job and exotic dancing, to make ends meet.

ENCOUNTER WITH RAPPER MASE

Eve, whose memoir is set to be released on September 17, shared with PEOPLE about her mindset during those early days. “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.” After just two months, Eve quit dancing, but not before meeting NY rapper MA$E, who encouraged her to focus on her rapping talent—a skill she’d been honing since her high school days, battling male classmates at 14. “When MA$E became a pastor, I was like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ He was my prophet that day. I needed that extra push,” she recalled. Eve later signed with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label, only to be dropped after eight months.

Reflecting on that setback, Eve said, “I think it was a huge blessing in disguise. I needed to be humbled. 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, ‘OK, well, if you got this opportunity again, who do you want to be? What do you want to show the world?’” Undeterred, Eve found her next opportunity with the Yonkers-based rap crew Ruff Ryders, after fiercely battle-rapping every man in the room at her audition. “I was like, ‘OK, this is a ride-or-die situation. I’m rapping for my life right now.’ I had to kill them all, lyrically,” she said.

1ST LADY OF RUFF RYDERS

Impressed by her skills, Ruff Ryders signed Eve and released her debut album, Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, in 1999. On the day of its release, JAY-Z called to congratulate her and offered a piece of advice, warning her not to stress about sales figures because female hip-hop albums historically didn’t sell well. Eve took his words as motivation. “I wasn’t mad at him. If anything, it was just fuel,” she said. Defying expectations, her debut album soared to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making her the third female rapper in history to achieve that feat.