This weekend, Cardi B arrived in Sydney, Australia for a scheduled New Year's Eve performance down under, but her visit was quickly soured by a few unpleasant encounters in the airport.
Initially, as a group of photographers follows the rapper and her team around, a photographer is heard shouting, "You're in Sydney now, mate, you're in Australia." Adding, "It's our rules, not yours, buddy. Our rules, not yours. Be clear on that. What's going on with the blanket, Cardi? You got an identity crisis or something? Give the fans a picture, Cardi."
Cardi B remained shrouded in a blanket and at one point another woman said, "No wonder your husband left ya" when Cardi refuses to stop for a photograph. A video soon went viral of her publicist going off on the woman, threatening to smack her.
Cardi soon hopped on Instagram defending her publicist and detailing the experience in the airport, going on to describe the treatment she experienced while going through the airport.
"So as soon as I got here, you know, paparazzi's all in my face, and I get that, I understand that," Cardi said on an IG live session on Sunday. "But what didn't sit well with me was this man telling me, 'You're in Australia now...you're playing by our rules.'"
She adds, "Then this old lady, she keeps asking for a picture but I'm like literally covering my face [...] she says something rude, disrespectful to me, like, 'Oh, that's why your husband cheated on you,' and that's when my publicist got in her face. And you know what she did? [The woman] acted like she was so scared, like a victim, 'Oh my God, oh my God.'"
But the viral moment didn't bother Cardi nearly as much as the paparazzi's initial remarks as she cited racism as the root of such language.
"But that didn't even bother me as much as this white man telling me, 'Yeah, you playing by our rules,'" she continued. "It's like, what is your rules? What are you talking about? Like, my n---a, do I look like a little f--king slave to you? Do I look like a fucking slave to you or something? That's how y'all see people? That's how y'all see colored people or something, that you guys say foul shit like that...that shit got me so f--king mad. That s--t don't sit well with me, like, it just made me think like, yo, I just want to go home."
Cardi ended up staying after all to play a gig in Perth for the New Year's celebration.