When much of your success is attributed to lucid sexuality, what becomes of your career once your sex appeal begins to wane? Launching her career with the now infamous promotional poster that saw the space between her legs measure as wide as the distance between NY and LA (or Bobby Brown's teeth), Lil' Kim (along with Foxy Brown) kicked off a new era of rap where women were just as graphic and blunt about their sexual appetites and prowesses as their male counterparts. Kim unapologetically pimped her pint-size frame to secure a larger than life celebrity where men the world over - and at one point even Diana Ross - became enticed by her overt display of sexulity.

However, over the years, label politics, rap beefs, the loss of her support system, and noted legal woes have tainted the star of rap's Queen Bitch --- forcing Kim to straddle along the line of relevance and fading celebrity that may only be mildly salvaged by reality TV. Poised to make a comeback, Kim has managed to latch herself onto a top ten hit (Keyshia Cole's "Let It Go"), a few homemade but internet buzz-generating remixes ("Gimmie More," "Sensual Seduction") and a fan-appeasing mixtape designed to remind people that not only is Lil' Kim back (or still alive), she's ready to snatch her crown back.


Though musically, she's on the right path, offering some of her best bars in years, there's an elephant in the room that not many people seem to want to discuss openly: the fact that Lil' Kim's sex appeal is almost as dead as she is in the picture above. Thanks to botched surgeries that suggest Kim received her operations on the set of Saw, Kim has gone from pin up girl to public spectacle.

Kim's shtick for years has been her gift of gab of all things sexual. So, the question of the day is, can you profit off of talk of the power of the p-u-s-s-y if some people now view you as a d-e-m-o-n?