Taking a break from the studio, Pitbull took a minute to front his hometown magazine Ocean Drive for its annual Men’s issue.
The Miami-native posed for the sexy spread and opened up to the magazine about growing up in the rough South Beach neighborhoods and “beating the system” by receiving his high school diploma in a very unconventional way.
Check out a few highlights from Pitbull’s interview below and for more, head over to Ocean Drive!
On where he gets his business savvy:
“Growing up, I saw a lot of people make something out of nothing; it may have not been in a legal fashion, but it was always interesting to see how people could flip things.”
On being shown the door of Miami’s Coral Park Senior High School a year early, because the principal didn’t want him back for another year:
“Being young, you’re just thinking, Wow, I beat the system. But in actuality, the system beat me. But hey, I ran into the university of life, and man, since I was a kid I’ve been living the School of Hard Knocks. Once you put the two together, you can develop someone either very dangerous or someone, I would say, very sharp—and dangerous when he wants to be.”
On living on his own at 16 and dealing drugs in some of the roughest neighborhoods in Miami during the hey-day of the ‘90s coke trade, following in his now deceased father’s footsteps:
“I don’t like to go into specifics too much, because I don’t want to glamorize it at all.”
On the inspiration behind his tight, tailored Italian suits
“The inspiration for the sharp suits comes from the guys I used to look up to. Being 5 years old and seeing the guys that would come around, they were always in sharp suits. Gentlemen, but you could tell that they were nothing to mess with, and very dangerous.”
On whether he’s mended the fences with Lindsay Lohan, who had sued him over the line, ‘I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan:’
“We had no reason to make up, because I never disrespected her. Where I’m from, that’s a compliment! We say, ‘We got this locked up,’ like, we got this.”
On his critics:
“Haters gonna hate—let them hate. It’s when people stop talking about you that you have a problem.”
On hanging out with his six kids, ages 1 to 11:
“My kids mean the world to me; what makes them so special to me is that that’s where I get the genuine love from. To them, I’m not Pitbull, not Armando, not Chris, not Mr. Worldwide or Mr. 305—no, I’m Papi! And one thing I never want them to do is live in my shadow. I want them to be able to do what they want with their life, without having to use me as that connection, and to have that, as we say in Spanish, agalla, which is backbone. Any chance I get to have them all together and enjoy them all is priceless.”
On his relationship status:
“C’mon man, you know my slogan is ‘single, bilingual, and ready to mingle’!”
On his upcoming New Year’s special, Pitbull’s New Year’s Revolution:
“What’s better than being Miami-born and raised, Dade County, 305, and putting together a New Year’s Eve revolution and showing the world what it is to enjoy New Year’s Eve here, bringing in 2015 on a positive note?”
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