Cardi B calls off divorce from Offset

The couple married in secret in 2017

Rap stars Cardi B and Offset are giving their marriage another chance.

Cardi B filed for divorce last month and asked for "primary physical custody" of the couple's two-year-old daughter, Kulture.

At the time, she called the relationship "irretrievably broken".

But the 28-year-old, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, had the case dismissed "without prejudice" on Monday - meaning she has the right to refile the divorce at a later date.

The pair publicly rekindled their romance during Cardi B's 28th birthday celebrations in Las Vegas and Atlanta last month.

She later told fans: "I just be starting to miss [him]. It's hard not to talk to your best friend. It's really hard not to talk to your best friend."

'Protect what's most important'

A judge will still have to sign off on the dismissal, but Offset - the stage name of Migos rapper Kiari Cephus - acknowledged in a statement to Billboard that the couple had reconciled.

"I can confirm that the divorce filed by Cardi B has been dismissed," his lawyer Onyema Anene Farrey said.

"My firm and I have always been an advocate for helping fathers protect what's most important to them - their families and their children. That was no different here.

"We remain in Offset's corner and in support of him and his future. He thanks his fans for their continued love and support."

Cardi B, whose hits include I Like It Like That and WAP, did not comment on the end of the divorce case. Instead, she took to Instagram to encourage her followers to vote in the US presidential election.

Offset and Cardi B: A timeline of their relationship

Cardi B and Offset have been married since 2017

Cardi B and Offset married in a private ceremony in 2017, and did not publicly reveal the news of their nuptials until around a year later.

She announced they had split in December 2018, amid rumours of his cheating.

After apologising on Instagram for being a "selfish, messed-up husband", Offset then asked for forgiveness on stage in front of a crowd at her Rolling Loud concert, where he pulled out a sign made of roses that read: "Take me back Cardi."

The public display of affection and apparent remorse was received poorly by Cardi's fans online, with some calling the move "toxic".

However, she urged people not to bash him for trying. "I'm not saying that I'm gonna get back together with him, I just don't like that bashing online thing," she wrote on social media at the time, before the couple got back together.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan earlier in the same year, the provocative Grammy-winning Bronx performer said she wanted to work on the relationship, noting what he did was "not right" but that "I ain't no angel".

She celebrated their second wedding anniversary with a post on Instagram last year alongside a picture of the two of them together. "We keep learning and growing. That's what marriage about," read the caption.

But on 15 September, 2020, she filed for divorce in Georgia, where the couple live, saying the relationship was "irretrievably broken".

"It's not because of cheating," she said on social media. "I just got tired of... arguing".

But the relationship appeared to have thawed a month later, when the couple were pictured cosying up at Cardi's birthday celebrations.

In a subsequent Instagram live, she told fans she was "crazy" and that the relationship was turbulent, but added that he was her "best friend".