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With all of the love Cardi B has been getting including rave reviews for her impressive performance last week at the American Music Awards and a rumored request to appear in a reboot of 90’s hit sitcom The Nanny, it’s no surprise that a little negative press was a long overdue. When it comes to social media, there is sometimes no rhyme or reason behind when something goes viral and this time all side eyes are on the “I Like It Like That” rapper for apparently being unprofessional and letting the fame go to her head.
In a video initially posted in January, but now is randomly going viral and approaching over 5 million views, makeup artist BlacSwan shares a story of meeting Cardi B, someone she had admired for some time, to do her makeup and being humiliated and disrespected in the process. In the 36-minute long video, the woman shares she was dismissed and disregarded by the Bronx-born rapper after being requested to do her makeup not once but twice. Through teary eyes at times, BlacSwan shares how uncooperative the artist was having no regard for her time, being constantly in her phone and disruptive of her creative process and ultimately telling her to, “Get the f**k outta here,” and refusing to pay for her services. At one point she shares Cardi completely roasted her work with the remark:
“Bitch, I’m not dead yet. I’m not caucasian.”
Of course, as the video began to gain momentum, Cardi wasn’t here for the shading of her name and shared thoughts on her encounter with BlacSwan during an Instagram Live session:
“You don’t know how to do your job. Somebody contacts you and you come mad late. You come mad high, high as f**k. In the middle of the process I tell you, ‘I don’t like how my makeup is looking.’ ‘I’m not finished yet.’ ‘Aight, whatever, you’re the makeup artist. You’re acting like you know what you’re doing.’ Then when I don’t like it I wipe my face off and I tell you to get the f**k out. Leave. How are you crying over something that happened two years ago? They’re clout chasing.”
Cardi also offered BlacSwan some career advice for the future if she plans to continue being a celebrity makeup artist:
“It’s unprofessional to go online and talk s**t. You know what that do? That makes people not want to hire you.”
Admittedly, I had some comp time on Friday and was child-free so I had some time to partake in the 36-minute rant and I came to a few conclusions myself. BlacSwan shared how much of a Cardi B stan she was before actually meeting her and lamented that “she could no wrong in her eyes”. The thing we have to remain conscious of in an Instagram live kinda world is that the more access we have to these celebs’ personal lives, the more we get to witness that they are actual flawed people, with unfavorable character traits and vices. Gone are the days where we can open up a VIBE magazine and truly believe that Monica or Brandy are the picture perfect, brown sugar and spice and everything nice artists their labels would’ve liked to believe they were at the time. And knowing that those illusions are things of the past we have to be prepared that when we meet the people we’re idolizing they could be having a bad day or dealing with some personal issues and they are entitled to that. While I don’t agree with the license to disrespect others because you have money or status, I also think it’s unrealistic to believe these celebrities are going to always be everything magazine covers make them out to be when we meet them. It doesn’t mean that either party in this situation is without blame, but if we take anything from this dispute, I think it should be that whether you’re contouring on general contracting, people are allowed to not like your work and it doesn’t always have to result in an assassination of their entire character…and that goes both ways.
BlacSwan denies that she showed up high or late and responded to Cardi’s Instagram live session with a series of screen-shotted texts as proof that the rapper has her confused with another situation. You can check out the original rant as well as Cardi’s response below:
