Claws out! Carole Baskin doesn’t approve of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion using big cat imagery in their new music video, “WAP.”
The video — which dropped on Friday, August 7 — was filled with feline-inspired visuals, including leopard and tiger-print costumes and images of leopards and white tigers walking around the rappers.
Although the animals weren’t actually in the room with Cardi, 27, and Megan, 25, the Big Cat Rescue CEO, 59, told TMZ on Saturday, August 8, that including them at all is “unnatural and confusing.”
Baskin said that the video sends a “terrible message and is harmful to the future of big cats,” adding that it glamorizes “keeping tigers as pets.” The Tiger King star also fears it will make “every ignorant follower want to imitate by doing the same.”
The star-studded music video not only featured appearances from big cats but also included cameos from Kylie Jenner, Normani, Rosalia, Rubi Rose, Mulatto and Sukihana.
Cardi told her followers that it was important for her to spotlight diversity in the music video, which has received more than 35 million views on YouTube since its release.
“I wanna say thank you to every woman that was apart of my video,” the “I Like It” rapper tweeted on Friday. “The fact that you made time in your schedules means a lot to me! It was so important to me to include different women, that are different races and come from different backgrounds but are so powerful and influential.”
Earlier that day, Cardi told Apple Music’s New Music Daily that she doesn’t understand why some people enjoy instigating fan wars between female musicians.
“I feel like people be wanting to put female artists against each other,” she told host Zane Lowe. “It’s the people that be trying to do that s–t. … Every single time I feel like there’s a female artist that’s coming up, coming up, coming up and getting [their] mainstream moment, I always see little, slick comments like, ‘Oh, they taking over your spot. They taking over this, they taking over that.’ And it just makes me feel like, ‘Damn, why it had to be like that?’ Because I actually like shorty’s music a lot.”
As for Baskin, the Netflix star scored a major win in June when she was awarded the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, which was previously owned by her nemesis, Joe Exotic.
