#Joyner Lucas Walks Back Karen Civil Slander: 'I Feel Bad'

Joyner Lucas opened the floodgates last month when he accused Karen Civil of cheating him out of $60,000 early in his career. Meek Mill, Cam’ron and Akademiks were among those who ganged up on the social media and digital media marketing strategist with similar claims of shady business dealings.

But as the allegations stacked up, Lucas took a step back. In a recent interview with Hot 97, the 33-year-old rapper explained he’d spoken with Civil and wanted to keep things, well, civil.

“I wanna go on record to say that I spoke to Karen and I, at the time that I spoke to Karen, she had a lot of other — she had a lot of public scrutiny from a lot of other people and I started feeling bad a little bit,” he said. “‘Cause I’m like, damn. I don’t wanna… So, I stopped.

“I had a conversation with her and I promised her I wasn’t just gonna keep dragging her name through the mud, you know what I mean?”

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Joyner Lucas, who accused Civil of once going “ghost” on him once he paid her for her services, then admitted he felt “bad” for publicly calling her out.

“At this point, I feel bad,” he continued. “I don’t wanna drag shorty name through the mud. I already made hella tweets about what the situation was, but I do wanna say that it was a point in my career where I was a very, very starving artist.

“I was trying to figure it out. I was trying to get in the game by any means and I was trying to figure out how to get in the game. I hired a few people, one being Karen and the way that that situation turned out in the end, I wasn’t a happy customer and I held a grudge.”

Lucas explained why he didn’t initially speak up as part of a flurry of tweets in September, citing Cam’ron’s previous warnings about working with Civil.

“At this time I was afraid to speak up for myself becuz I didn’t want to get blackballed,” he said. “I had no idea how this industry Shìt works and I ain’t want you to drag my name thru the mud so out of fear i stayed [zipper-face emoji] Until @Mr_Camron spoke up a few years ago on Twitter and then I did.”