Matthew. Mark. Luke. John. Lil’ Kim. These are the five apostles and we won’t hear anything otherwise.

In a recent Instagram Live, legendary rapper Lil’ Kim told her 3.3 million followers that the pre-orders for her upcoming memoir, titled The Queen Bee, are rivalling sales of the Bible. “When we post our pre-sales, we be surpassing the Bible,” said Kim to her fans, “and that’s crazy.” The rapper then went on to express how she felt about the news. “And the thing is,” she continued, “it’s, like, the Bible. I don’t take that lightly.”

For those of you unaware, the Bible is a famously quite popular collection of religious texts made up of the Old and New Testament. According to Guinness World Records, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with billions of copies sold worldwide. “It is impossible to know exactly how many copies have been printed in the roughly 1,500 years since its contents were standardised,” says the world record company, “but research conducted by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 2021 suggests that the total number probably lies between 5 and 7 billion copies.”

The Bible may have had a 1,500-year head start, but the gospel according to Kim is apparently hot on its heels. It’s estimated that a total of 80 million new Bibles are printed each year, so Kim’s going to have to book in some extra printing presses if she wants to do those kind of numbers.

In the same Instagram Live, Kim also alluded to reasons why her memoir’s publication date had been pushed back to 2025. According to Kim, the book is “done”, but “it’s some crazy shit going on behind the scenes,” which resulted in its delay. “It’s not really cool”, the rapper said, “you have to be really careful when you deal with these book companies because they try to really take advantage of you.” Kim originally announced her memoir back in April 2021, slated for release on November 2 of that same year. In July 2023, she posted a shot of the final manuscript explaining that “edits are finally done”, and also confirmed that long-time friend Marc Jacobs had written the book’s foreword.

The Queen Bee by Lil’ Kim is out September 23, 2025 via Hachette Books.

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