Lady Gaga Defends Cardi B After Some Suggest the Rapper Didn't Deserve Her Win at the Grammys
Lady Gaga is all for supporting her fellow women in the music industry.
The “Shallow” singer, who earned three Grammy wins on Sunday night, came to the defense of Cardi B after the 26-year-old “I Like It” rapper was criticized after her best rap album win.
Alongside a photo of the pair together at the awards show, Gaga, 32, wrote a supportive message to Cardi and encouraged social media users to “lift her up” in a tweet posted on Tuesday evening.
“It is so hard to be a woman in this industry. What it takes, how hard we work through the disrespectful challenges, just to make art,” she wrote on Twitter.
“I love you Cardi. You deserve your awards. Let’s celebrate her fight,” Gaga added. “Lift her up & honor her. She is brave.”
Gaga’s post came after Cardi deactivated her Instagram account following the criticism that she didn’t deserve her first-ever Grammy win, as well as some social media drama where she was pinned against her nemesis Nicki Minaj by the BET Network.
In response to the criticism, Cardi shared an expletive-filled rant on her Instagram, which was captured by a fan account on Monday, but has since been deleted.
“It’s not my style for people to put other people down to uplift somebody else,” she began in the clip, referencing a dig BET made at Nicki in a tweet, which said she was “being dragged by her lacefront” after Cardi’s Grammy win.
“That’s not my style and that’s not what I’m with,” Cardi said, adding, “I don’t support that.”
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE USED IN VIDEO BELOW
Cardi B reveals that she does not support BET’s aim at Nicki Minaj and defends herself from haters discrediting her #GRAMMYs win. pic.twitter.com/ZA1nKoiuUO
— Music News Facts (@musicnewsfact) February 11, 2019
“However, I’ve been taking a lot of s— today. I’m seeing a lot of bulls— today and I saw a lot of s— last night, and I’m sick of this s—. I work hard for my motherf—ing album,” she angrily stated.
The rapper continued her rant by reflecting on the reactions from last year’s Grammys results. Cardi earned two nominations in best rap performance and best rap song for her track “Bodak Yellow” but did not win for either one.
“I remember last year when I didn’t win for ‘Bodak Yellow’ and everybody was like, ‘Cardi got snubbed,'” she recalled. “Now this year’s a f— problem?! My album went two-time platinum, my n—, and every chart that there was, my album was always Top 10. Number one album, as well.”
Defending this year’s win, Cardi noted how she “worked her ass off” and spent endless hours in the studio, despite being pregnant with her daughter Kulture Kiari, now 7 months.
“I locked myself in the studio for three months, my n—. Didn’t go to sleep in my bed sometimes for four days straight — pregnant!” she explained. “While everybody was harassing me like, ‘You’re not gonna do it, we know you pregnant, your career’s over…'”
After the passionate video was posted — and subsequently deleted — Cardi then shared another cleaner reflection on her Instagram about all the work that went into making Invasion of Privacy, which was captured by PEOPLE before she deleted her account on Monday.
“Slept in the studio on leather sofas for 3 months straight, migraines, in Atlanta in Miami away from my family. I have 4 songs that couldn’t make the album cause my nose was so stuffy bro I was huffy puffy,” Cardi captioned a congratulatory post from Chance the Rapper.
“This is overly deserved, the album was front-to-back hits. It would be inconceivable not to honor u last night,” Chance, 25, who was featured on the project, wrote.
“I had @offsetyrn and @brooklyn.johnny reaching out to the world for a verse on top of that I was depress [sic] cause everybody was suspecting I was pregnant and I constantly kept reading Cardi you ‘STUPID,’ ‘YOU RUINED YOUR CAREER,’ ‘WHY WOULD YOU HAVE A BABY AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CAREER,'” Cardi continued tagging her husband Offset.
“My album went #1 and spend [sic] 21 weeks straight on billboard top ten! Every song is gold or platinum or higher. I listen to my album and I cry because I know the hell I went thruu doing the album is always a bittersweet memory.”
“THANK YOU EVERYONE THAT SUPPORTED ME AND LISTEN. I’m thankful and grateful and again thank you to all the artist that gave me a feature,” Cardi added.
While Cardi was busy fighting off criticism, Gaga was soaking up her sixth-ever Grammy win for best pop solo performance, best song written for visual media, and best pop duo/group performance.
RELATED: Lady Gaga Wins Third Grammy of the Night as She Gives Emotional Speech About Mental Health
Following her third win of the night for her smash hit “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, Gaga delivered an emotional speech about the importance of mental health.
“If I don’t get another chance to say this: I just want to say I’m so proud to be a part of a movie that addresses mental health issues. They’re so important,” she said in her speech. “And a lot of artists deal with that and we got to take care of each other. So if you see somebody that’s hurting don’t look away.”
“And if you’re hurting, even if it might be hard, try to find that bravery within yourself to dive deep and go tell somebody and take them up in your head with you,” she added.
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“Shallow” also won best original song at the 2019 Golden Globes on Jan. 7, where Gaga touched upon the difficulties of being a woman in the music industry.
“I just have to say, as a woman in music, it is really hard to be taken seriously as a musician and a songwriter,” the singer said on stage at the time. “These three incredible men… they lifted me up and supported me … Bradley [Cooper], I love you.”
