Cardi B is confronting the impossible post-baby beauty standards she says people online force onto women.
During a passionate X Spaces stream on Saturday (Nov. 15), the 33-year-old and mother of four pushed back against what she calls "fake ass concerned people on social media.”
The Am I the Drama? rapper said that critics overreacted to her appearance at a New York City event on Thursday after she recently gave birth to her fourth child, her first with boyfriend Stefon Diggs.
Despite her critics saying she was "back outside," Cardi explained she's actually been home recovering with her newborn all along.
“You don't even know when I gave birth to my kid. Second, I just find it really funny how y'all took one event that I went to for one hour, right? For one hour, literally, probably even less, because my obligation was to be there for 30 minutes,” she said during the livestream.
Cardi recalled how postpartum has hit her hard in the past, describing how after giving birth to Kulture in 2018, she "was at home for three months” with “the worst postpartum” that left her feeling traumatized.
With later pregnancies, she said, she battled sadness and tried rebuild her sense of self by getting her hair done, shopping, and slowly reentering work.
She said she's doing the same now because the bed rest after this birth left her "crying almost for everything," and that easing back into small routines is part of protecting her mental health.
“I put a faja on yesterday. I didn't put a faja on right away when I gave birth, I didn't do nothing," she said, referring to a compression garment. "Like I said, I was on bed rest, and while I was on bed rest, I was getting so many different thoughts, so many different shits. I was crying almost for everything.
“I'm slowly starting to get in the rhythm of me, and it makes me feel good. I don't like how you bitches are like, 'Oh, she's outside, she's doing this,'" she continued. "Y'all have not seen me in a club, y'all have not seen me out on a dinner, y'all have not seen me doing shit, but y'all ignore all the story posts of me with my kids. Clearly, I'm not going to post videos with my baby, but I've been with my baby all day long. In the morning time, I give my nanny a lot of breaks, hours of breaks. I sleep with him in the daytime, I feed him … I'm with my kids all day long. I live with my kids.”
Her anger was especially aimed at the contradictory body expectations she says the public puts on women, especially celebrities.
Elsewhere in the stream, Cardi said, "I don't wanna hear none of y'all bitches talking shit about, 'Oh well, she's so quick [to put] a faja on,’ because there's another celebrity that y'all was just fucking violating just because y'all want them to fucking put Ozempic all over their fucking body after giving birth.”
She continued, “It's so weird to me, because if a celebrity gained a little bit of weight after they give birth, y'all want them to fucking inject themselves with 300 Ozempic shots ... but if there's a girl like me that is like, 'Oh, l'm putting my faja on’ because I wanna retract a little faster, it’s a problem, too."
"Y'all just have a problem with women, period," she concluded.
Cardi's rant on X Spaces came shortly after her estranged husband Offset posted and later deleted an Instagram Story jokingly referring to Georgia state law that might technically recognize him as the father of Cardi and Diggs' newborn son, since he and Cardi are still legally married.