Cardi B hit the 2021 Grammy Awards stage on Sunday (March 14) with Megan Thee Stallion to perform their hit single, "WAP." However, the performance has been met with some backlash from political conservatives, but Bardi isn't backing down from the criticism.
On Monday (March 15), Tucker Carlson of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight spoke with conservative political analyst Candace Owens on the talk show and together, they bashed Cardi and Megan's performance for nearly five minutes.
Prior to Owens joining the segment though, Carlson said that the recent criticism over Dr. Seuss books and its racist imagery is hypocritical when Cardi and Meg's Grammys performance is deemed art.
Owens then weighed in on the conversation-sparking performance. "I mean Dr. Seuss, gone. Mr. Potato Head, problematic, not enough genders available," she said, referring to Hasbro removing the "Mr." from the toy line to make its name gender neutral. "We've seen going through the supermarket as a traumatizing experience. We lost Aunt Jemima last year. We lost Land O'Lakes butter last year. We lost Uncle Ben and his rice last year because everything is so traumatizing for children to look at."
The Blackout author continued, "But this? This spectacle? Virtually what we were looking at last night was a lesbian sex scene being simulated on television, and this is considered feminist. It's iconic. It's forward. It's progressive. This is starting, to me, to seem like it's not even left or right. It's not a political issue. This seems like an attack on American values, American traditions, and you're actually actively trying to make children aspire to things that are grotesque."
The Bronx, N.Y. rapper caught wind of the segment via a snippet that has been circulating online. In a portion of the clip, which Cardi reposted and captioned, "Yaaaayyyyyyy WE MADE FOX NEWS GUYS !!! Wap wap wap," Owens lamented, "They call this great. They say that this is fabulous. That this is the stuff children should be aspiring towards. So at the same time Tucker, that we have kids that are not learning hard academics anymore in school, right? Forget about mathematics and science. You can trust the science and trust Dr. Fauci. But you have these kids learning about critical race theory. They’re learning that they should aspire to people like Cardi B. You see that fundamentally, we are seeing the destruction of American values, American principles. And it's terrifying. I think parents should be terrified that this is the direction that our society is heading towards. And again, we are weakening America."
The political pundit went on to compare the performance to "corrosion" and claimed that "we are about to see the end of an empire" because of the nature of the performance and it being broadcasted on television.
Just before Cardi shared her thoughts on the political segment, she responded to a tweet from conservative comedian Tim Young, who appears to support Dr. Seuss' books over the "WAP" song lyrics.
"The lyrics to 'Wet Ass Pussy' are more welcome in some schools than Dr. Seuss books… just let that sink in for a minute," he wrote in a tweet. Cardi replied shortly after in a retweet, "When has a school made kids read the lyrics to wap? I get it wap might be a lil vulgar but stop comparing a sensual song to books that has RACIST content! How can ya not tell the difference?I see that common sense aint that common."
She followed up her response by saying, "By the way Dr Seuss publishing company made the decisions to remove those books on their own .Black people are not the one telling these companies to do things that they think Is 'progressive' black only ask for equal justice . Conservatives been making viral tweets comparing WAP to the banning of some of Dr Seuss books as if there’s any correlations between the two ….Well I can DEFINITELY tell some of ya ONLY read dr Seuss books 🙄 cause ya mind lacks comprehension."
Then, this afternoon (March 16), Cardi B called out Candace Owens directly, nicknaming her "Candy."
"Matter fact I’m just going to thank Candy," the Invasion of Privacy rhymer typed on Twitter. "She put my performance on Fox News giving it more views that boosted the views on YouTube and is counting towards my streams and sales 😜 STREAM UP AND WAP .REMEMBER GROWN PARENTS ONLY YOU CAN MONITOR WHAT YOUR KIDS WATCH NO1 ELSE."
To this, Owens responded in a tweet, "I don’t work for Fox News, Belcalis, nor do I take issue with you having success. I take issue with you being used to encourage young women to strip themselves of dignity. Men typically treat women how they treat themselves. You know that."
Cardi also shared a clip from R&B singer Fantasia's music video for "When I See U," in which the singer belts out, "I love it, I love it." The Grammy Award-winning artist captioned the Twitter post, "Me when the Republicans and conservatives have Temper tantrums cause of WAP every month 😅😩."
As things between the two women escalated, the "Up" artist reposted a series of articles including headlines about an unconfirmed story of Candace Owens' husband cheating on her with her brother. "Not you being mad at me for WHAT YOU TWEETED AND is published on public blogs," Cardi wrote in the caption. "I ain’t made it up honey Google it yourself 😩😩😩."
Owens countered Cardi's tweet, telling her that the reports the rapper shared were false and a "slanderous lie." She typed, "This looks like a random blog that seems to have been dumb enough to have fallen for a photoshopped tweet. You tweeted that the photoshopped tweet was real and you saw it on a day that I was trending—which is a lie. You made that part up to help circulate a slanderous lie."
Bardi fired back that she should take legal action against Owens for falsely accusing the rapper's team of photoshopping tweets. Cardi B tweeted, "Didn’t you just tweeted that Me and my team are photoshopping shit to take you down and now your saying that the blog was wrong even if you was trending in November all day cause of the tweet? Which one is it ?I should sue you for saying I’m photoshopping shit."
Owens then wrote in a tweet that after consulting with her family, she plans to sue Cardi. She concluded, "Yes. Just spoke with my family. I am 100% suing Cardi for that nonsense. You can’t just start throwing out wild lies against private members of my family because you’re upset someone called your out on your degenerate performance. I‘ll keep you all posted."
Cardi B and right-wing analyst Candace Owens went on to trade disses via Twitter, but this isn't the first time they've had a war of words. Owens spoke against Cardi last September on Fox News after Bardi sat down and had a virtual meeting with now-President Joe Biden.
Check out the back-and-forth between Cardi B and Candace Owens, which includes a NSFW image of former First Lady Melania Trump, below.
See Wild Rap Beefs That'll Probably Never Be Resolved