Cardi B hits back at Candace Owens asking if she was paid to speak at Kamala Harris’ campaign event

15 November, 2024

Cardi B and Candace Owens. Credit: Jacopo M. Raule and Jason Davis via GETTY

Cardi B has hit back at Candace Owens after the conservative American commentator asked her if she was paid to speak at Kamala Harris‘ campaign event.

The rapper – real name Belcalis Cephus – appeared as one of the guest speakers at Vice President Harris’ rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last month. Yesterday (November 14), Owens took to her official X/Twitter account and tweeted: “Hey @iamcardib. Working on a story and was wondering if you were in any way paid to speak at the Kamala campaign event you spoke at. Thanks in advance!”, provoking the ‘Bodak Yellow’ singer.

“I didn’t get paid a dollar and that’s on my three!! I actually came out of pocket for glam and travel because it’s somewhere I wanted to be,” Cardi responded, adding: “Like please girl you know damn well I’ll argue you down about politics FOR FREE.”

At the rally, Cardi endorsed the Vice President and addressed the crowd, comparing herself to Harris, saying she had been an “underdog” throughout her career too. “I’ve been underestimated. My success belittled and discredited,” she said. “Women have to work 10 times harder, perform 10 times better, and still, people question us how we got to the top.”

She also noted that she hadn’t planned on voting this year, but had changed her mind once Harris entered the race. Previous to Biden’s dropout, she had criticised him because of his stance on Palestine and his inaction over the economy.

“I feel like people got betrayed,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s just like, ‘Damn, y’all not caring about nobody.’ Then, it really gets me upset that there is solutions to it. There is a solution. I know there’s a solution because you’re spending billions of dollars on any fucking thing.”

“[Harris] changed my mind completely,” Cardi explained during the rally. “I did not have faith for any candidate until she joined the race and said the things that I wanted to hear — things I want to see next in this country. I believe in every word that comes out of her mouth; she’s passionate, she’s compassionate, she shows empathy, and most of all, she is not delusional.”

A day after the presidential election, the rapper took to her social media to express her pride in Harris’ campaign run, saying “you have shown me, my daughters and women across the country that anything is possible”.

Owens was not the first person to hit out at Cardi for her endorsement of Harris’ campaign. The rapper had previously hit back at  Elon Musk after he called her a “puppet” for endorsing Harris. Following her speech, Musk took to Twitter/X to criticise her, posting: “Another puppet who can’t even talk without being fed the words. The Kamala campaign has no authenticity or true empathy.”

She then took to Twitter/X herself to clap back at Musk, saying “I’m not a puppet Elon.. I’m a daughter of two immigrant parents that had to work their ass off to provide for me!

“I’m a product of welfare, I’m a product of section 8 [the Housing Choice Voucher Program], I’m a product of poverty and I’m a product of what happens when the system is set up against you….But you don’t know nothing about that,” she continued.

She went on to say: “You don’t know not one thing about the American struggle…. PS fix my algorithm.”

During the election on November 5, Cardi shared and then swiftly deleted a video message she had posted addressing Donald Trump‘s lead in swing states.

In the clip, Cardi – who was using a face-distorting filter – said: “This is why some of y’all States be getting hurricanes. That’s all I’m going to say.”

The clip was then promptly deleted within minutes of its original posted time at 8:42pm PT (4:41am GMT). Though she didn’t specifically call out voters from states that were affected by the natural disasters this year, Variety reported that shortly before her X/Twitter post, the Associated Press had “called races in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and North Carolina in favour of Donald Trump.”

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