Australian rapper Iggy Azalea once topped the charts. These days, she runs a casino.

If you haven't thought about the rapper Iggy Azalea in a hot minute, then same.

Born Amethyst Amelia Kelly, Iggy is one of Australia's most successful musical exports, uprooting her life from a small town in New South Wales to find international stardom with her chart-topping hits and iconic collaborations.

Azalea's debut album, The New Classic, released in 2014, was a game-changer for the artist, blending hip-hop with pop and EDM influences.

The album produced several hit singles, most notably 'Fancy' featuring Charli XCX, which hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and topped charts worldwide, along with 'Problem' with Ariana Grande, which became another global smash hit and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Iggy Azalea and Ariana Grande perform onstage during the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. Image: Getty.

At the time, Azalea became only the second act after The Beatles to simultaneously hold both the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100.

She went on to have a slew of moderate hits, such as 'Black Widow' featuring Rita Ora and 'Pretty Girls' with Britney Spears, plus charted with her solo singles, 'Work', 'Bounce', and 'Change Your Life'.

Iggy has been nominated for four Grammy awards, plus she won two American Music Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, and Best Pop Video for 'Problem' with Ariana Grande at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards.

Iggy Azalea joined The X Factor Australia as a judge for its eighth season, which aired in 2016. During her time on the show, Azalea had a famous (and low-key hilarious) feud with fellow judge, Guy Sebastian.

Watch Iggy and Guy get into an argument. Post continues after video.

The Aussie is recognised as one of the best-selling female rappers globally, with over 7 billion views on her YouTube channel and 15 music videos surpassing 100 million views each.

She was crowned by GQ Australia as 'Woman of the Year' in 2016 and featured in Rolling Stone Australia's '50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time'.

In the years since her breakout success beginning in 2014, the rapper continued to make music, but it didn't make quite the same impact.

What happened to Iggy Azalea: Where is the Australian rapper now?

Azalea does the occasional live performance, such as taking the stage to perform some hits at the 2024 Adult Video News Awards at Resorts World Las Vegas.

In 2021 and 2022, she was the opening act for Pitbull's arena tours in North America.

Iggy Azalea performs at the 2024 Adult Video News Awards at Resorts World Las Vegas. Image: Getty.

Part of the reason Iggy quickly fell out of favour comes down to the Australian becoming the subject of recurring controversy.

Azalea has frequently faced criticism for cultural appropriation, particularly regarding the way she speaks with a 'blaccent', uses racially insensitive lyrics and her adoption of hip-hop aesthetics as a white Australian woman.

Critics and fellow artists, including Azealia Banks and Halsey, have accused her of exploiting Black culture for commercial success without acknowledging its roots or the struggles of Black artists.

In January 2024, Azalea seemingly retired from making music.

In a lengthy message on X (formerly Twitter), Azalea announced the news to fans.

"I've always been someone who finds my joy in being creative & seeing my ideas come to life. For a long time I used music to deliver my big crazy ideas to the world," she wrote.

"I know a lot of people have this idea that I was 'bullied away from music' and that's something I've always laughed at because I'd never be bullied out of anything! In fact, I'm too stubborn. I think I've even resisted changes within myself at times, purely because I don't like being viewed as someone who quits."

Iggy Azalea at an event in Los Angeles in 2017. Image: Getty.

She continued, "In truth, what I've known for a long time is that I feel more passionately about design and creative direction than I do about songwriting," she wrote, before announcing her fourth album would never see the light of day.

"That's why I want to let you know that I'm not going to finish my album. It's been paused for a few months while I was giving direction for a different project & in truth, I just haven't felt the urge to go back to it. I feel really happy & passionate in my day-to-day life when my [mind's] focused on that and so I want to stick to what's undeniably best for me."

That said, Azalea is still active in the music industry.

She has featured on several new tracks in 2025, including high-profile collaborations with Tyga and Rick Ross. Notably, she appears on Tyga's singles 'Down', 'Nothing', and 'Riot', all accompanied by official music videos that Iggy has featured in.

In addition to her music revenue, the former rapper is still making (A LOT of) money from her popular OnlyFans account.

She joined OnlyFans in 2023 and would go on to become the platform's highest-paid celebrity creator of 2024, with estimated total earnings of around $48 million USD in the first year she joined.

But mostly these days, Iggy has embraced a pivot away from music and OnlyFans and towards *checks notes* cryptocurrency.

Iggy Azalea is given a tour of the New York Stock Exchange in 2024. Image: Getty.

In May 2024, Iggy launched her own memecoin, $MOTHER, on the Solana blockchain. Unlike many celebrity tokens that are simply endorsements, Azalea is the driving force behind $MOTHER, actively building an ecosystem around it rather than just lending her name.

The $MOTHER token saw explosive early success, with its market capitalisation soaring to around $240 million within the first two weeks and peaking at $260 million just ten days after launch.

Early investors saw huge returns, with the price jumping from $0.0001 at launch to a high of $0.20. Do I know what any of that means? Not really, but it sounds impressive.

Then to give her token a real-world feel, Azalea announced in November 2024 that she was launching Motherland, an online casino where users can wager using $MOTHER and other cryptocurrencies.

Motherland offers a full suite of casino games, including slots, blackjack, roulette, poker, live dealer games, sports betting, tournaments, and community competitions.

At a launch event in Singapore, Azalea describes the casino as a "digital homeland for the crypto community."

So yes, Iggy Azalea might have bid goodbye to music (well, sort of) but she's doing just fine with loads of other ventures.

Feature image: Getty.