Cardi B Slams Paparazzi of Racism After Heated Confrontation

Cardi B is spending her New Year’s Eve in Australia, and the trip has not started off well. After a heated confrontation with paparazzi at the Sydney airport, the “Bodack Yellow” rapper accused the paparazzi of racism on Instagram.

Cardi, 26, arrived in Sydney Saturday and was met with a group of paparazzi. She was not interested in speaking with any of them or having her picture taken after a long flight, so she had a blanket over her face, with publicist Patience Foster and a male associate ushering her through the luggage area.

“You’re in Sydney now, mate, you’re in Australia,” one photographer yelled at Cardi, reports E! News. “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 then asked if they could leave her alone, but they continued following her. At one point, a female photographer was heard telling her, “No wonder your husband left you,” referencing her split with husband Offset. Foster told the woman to watch her mouth and threatened to hit her, but she did not.

After the incidents, Cardi took to Instagram, where she shared a live rant about the incident.

“So as soon as I got here, you know, paparazzi’s all in my face, and I get that, I understand that. But what didn’t sit well with me was this man telling me, ‘You’re in Australia now…you’re playing by our rules,’” Cardi told her fans in one clip. “It don’t sit well with me when a white man tells me that s–. Like, excuse me? Sir…you think this is the 1800s? Are you crazy? Like, do you think that people are still getting oppressed or something?”

Cardi said the woman who yelled at her about her husband “acted like she was so scared, like a victim” after Foster threatened her. However, what bothered her the most was how the male photographers were talking to her. She accused them of racism and wondered if she looked like a “slave” to them.

“That didn’t even bother me as much as this white man telling me, ‘Yeah, you playing by our rules,’” she said. “It’s like, what is your rules? What are you talking about? Like, my n–, do I look like a little f– slave to you? Do I look like a f– slave to you or something? That’s how ya’ll see people? That’s how ya’ll see colored people or something, that you guys say foul s– like that…that s– got me so f– mad. That s– don’t sit well with me, like, it just made me think like, yo, I just want to go home.”

Foster also defended her actions in an Instagram Story post.

“Understand me. Won’t no job ‘title’ ever change me or who I am! I will always defend myself, and the people around me,” she wrote. “What’s ‘professional’ to you don’t mean [no] s– to me! PERIOD!”

“Any of you bishes in my situation would have been folded!” Patience continued. “You hoes out here getting ran down on everyday! Don’t be mad at me for defending mines, be made that you the type with ‘best friends’ that let you get beat up!”

In the end, Cardi did perform her show at the Origins Field Festival in Perth, Australia, but the paparazzi situation still inspired an expletive-filled rant on fame.

“Stop telling me how I need to act like another celebrity, or this person would never…’you need to handle your situation like this person, that person,’” she said in another Instagram post. “Bro that’s not me, that’s not me, bro. Like, sometimes, I don’t even feel like I’m a celebrity because the standards and the way I expect these celebrities to act, ho, that is not me motherf–, I don’t talk like that, I don’t act like, bro, I’m just doing my motherf– job, I’m just getting my coins.”

Cardi will perform at Field Day 2019 in Sydney on Tuesday.

Photo credit: Steven Ferdman/WireImage/Getty Images