Cardi B is defending herself after an apparent faux pas at the 2024 Met Gala.
The 31-year-old “Up” rapper stole the show in a massive black ball gown by Windowsen on Monday’s red carpet in New York City, but caused a different kind of stir when she seemingly forgot designer Sensen Lii’s name in an interview.
Speaking with Vogue‘s Emma Chamberlain, Cardi was asked a standard line of questioning that included, “Do you feel amazing? Who made this?”
“I feel amazing,” Cardi emphatically replied, appearing to pause before responding to the second part of the question. “It’s this amazing designer. They’re Asian and everything,” she said.
Cardi caught plenty of heat online for the statement.
“I see a lot of you guys fake gagging on Twitter,” Cardi said in a video that was reportedly first posted to Instagram, but has since been circulated by fans on X (formerly Twitter).
“I want to make this very clear, right, first thing’s first,” she began. “When I was on the red carpet, I was very scared because the dress was supposed to be on a little podium and I’ve been practicing how to pose on the podium, but at the carpet I wasn’t allowed to use the podium. So I had a lot of things on my mind and I was being rushed to the front of the line.”
She continued, “So when I was getting interviewed, I kind of forgot to pronounce the designer’s name because his name is a little bit complicated. So I was like, ‘Damn, how to pronounce his name!’ Like, my mind was just racing.”
Cardi insisted that her use of the term “Asian” was not meant to be offensive. In fact, her intention was the opposite.
“I said ‘Asian designer’ because I knew the designer was Asian but I didn’t, I wasn’t sure what nationality the designer was,” she said. “And I feel like it’s offensive if I was to be like, ‘Oh, some Chinese designer’ or ‘some Korean designer’ or ‘some Vietnamese designer.'”
She added, “I don’t wanna get somebody’s nationality mixed up.”
As for the online chatter speculating that she could be banned from future Met Galas on account of the incident, the artist sounds off on a defiant note.
“For you guys to talk about like, ‘She don’t know this, ‘She’s not a fashion,’ ‘She’s not gonna get invited this year,'” Cardi said, “Baby, I’m Cardi B.”
Cardi also made sure to give Lii his flowers on social media, offering a heartfelt shout-out on her Instagram Story.
“I have to give another thank you to @windowsen I chose you because of your amazing talent and you came through really making this Met Gala a night to remember @sensenlii,” she wrote over a video of herself posing in the dramatic dress.
Lii responded by reposting her message, adding with a heart emoji, “Thanks @iamcardib.”
The look certainly made an impression at the event. The dress was so large that it required eight people to carry it up the museum’s iconic steps.
Lii — who is the founder and designer of the independent fashion house, Windowsen — talked to ET about the inspiration for the dress.
“I associated fertile, black soil with the theme — like the rich earth used for planting crops and flowers,” he said in a statement. “The design is floral, reminiscent of a garden’s trees, flowers, and earth. The whole dress uses nearly three thousand meters of organza and consists of an inner and an outer layer.”
Lii added, “The collaboration took nearly two months from planning to execution. Our entire studio worked around the clock on this project, making it an intensive but rewarding experience. Designing for an artist like Cardi B is such an honor but also filled with uncertainty for me. With so many options available for such a high-profile artists, the final decision on what to wear might not be made until the last minute. It remains uncertain until she actually walks the red carpet. I also flew to New York for the fitting and some final touch up of the dress.”
RELATED CONTENT:
