Cardi B is blaming “the government” for a recent onstage mishap.
On Friday, Feb. 13, the 33-year-old rapper fell backward off her chair while performing “Thotiana” at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as part of her Little Miss Drama Tour, according to videos shared on social media.
After quickly recovering and continuing to dance, Cardi — whose real name is Belcalis Almánzar — stood up, pointed at the chair and joked, “That was the government!”
The moment soon went viral, and she later reposted the clip on X with a tongue-in-cheek caption: “Can someone put a community note on this? This video is clearly AI.”
Two days earlier, Cardi launched the tour in Palm Desert, Calif., where another onstage moment also spread widely online.
“If ICE come in here, we’re gonna jump they asses,” she told the crowd. “I got some bear mace in the back. They ain’t taking my fans, bitch. Let’s go!”
Hours after the remarks made headlines, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reposted a TMZ tweet about the moment and commented, “As long as she doesn’t drug and rob our agents, we’ll consider that an improvement over her past behavior.”
Cardi pushed back on X, referencing renewed attention around documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein: “If we talking about drugs let’s talk about Epstein and friends drugging underage girls to rape them. Why yall don’t wanna talk about the Epstein files?”
In a 2022 interview with David Letterman on his Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Cardi said she feels a responsibility to speak openly about politics and current events.
“I don’t really put a lot of political things in my music, but I use the f— out of my platform,” she said. “Because you might think that people are not looking, but they are.”
She added that many people follow her for her style and lifestyle, but she also wants to point them toward broader issues. “While you here and you’re checking my outfit and checking my music,” she said, “check out what’s going on over here in this part of the world.”
Cardi B’s Little Miss Drama Tour supports her latest studio album, Am I the Drama? The run includes stops in several major cities before concluding in Atlanta in April.
