Cardi B said she wasn’t “gonna engage” with Carole Baskin’s disparaging remarks on the use of big cats in the rapper’s video for WAP, but she does have one thing to say to the Tiger King star.
“Like, that’s just ridiculous, you know? Oh, Lord. Like, girl, you killed your goddamn husband,” the 27-year-old said an i-D interview published on Thursday. She was repeating an unproven allegation about the 1997 disappearance of Baskin’s second husband.
Cardi B’s pushback comes after the CEO of Big Cat Rescue told Entertainment Weekly in a statement earlier this week that she believed Cardi and Megan Thee Stallion likely used “big cat pimps” in the making of their video for WAP.
“You have to pose a wildcat in front of a green screen to get that image, and that doesn’t happen in the wild. It can’t happen in sanctuaries like ours where cats have plenty of room to avoid a green screen (or would shred it if offered access and could die from ingesting it). That tells me they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps,” said Baskin, who added that “big cat pimps” make a living from “beating, shocking and starving cats to make them stand on cue in front of a green screen in a studio.”
Baskin also said that featuring big cats in videos “glamorises” them as possible pets when they’re not.
The WAP video has caused quite a stir since it dropped a few days ago, prompting some very public pearl-clutching from conservatives over the salacious lyrics. Of that response, Cardi told i-D that she’s been “really surprised by the reaction, honestly.”
“I knew it was gonna have a big impact, I guess, because of me and Megan,” she said.
“But I didn’t know it was going to be so controversial. I never expected that, you know, conservatives and Republicans were going to be talking about the song. I didn’t think the song was as vulgar as they said it was, you know? Like, I’m so used to it. I’m such a freak that I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I didn’t think people would think it was so out of this world,”
But, Cardi admitted, it all makes her “happy,” not angry.
“They keep talking and the numbers keep going up. At the end of the day, whatever they’re saying, the numbers speak for themselves,” she said.