Cardi B is speaking out about what she says are "misleading" claims regarding comments she recently made on Instagram Live.
Making the rounds on social media in recent days were reports of the Grammy winner in connection with her reaction to key aspects of the recently released Netflix series Baby Reindeer, which centers on a comedian dealing with the trauma of sexual assault.
"I really wanted to have this conversation with you guys because I watched the show Baby Reindeer," Cardi said at the top of the IG Live session on Wednesday. "It’s on Netflix and I haven’t been able to finish watching it because around the fourth or fifth episode it kind of traumatized me a little bit."
From there, Cardi goes into a summary of the story’s depiction of assault and trauma, specifically praising the series for its male perspective.
"It’s so important for us to know certain male perspectives about these type of things," she said. "Because you know women go through a lot of sexual assault but we don’t really hear or see what other men go through when they experience sexual assault. It shocked me."
Portions from around this part of the stream were later widely shared on social media, albeit without "context," as Cardi later pointed out.
In the video, Cardi continued, saying, "I believe that there’s some men that are born gay. I feel like I have a cousin that I just knew since he was two years old. … And he is gay and I love him. There’s people that are born gay and then there’s men that get sexually assaulted and then they find out that they are gay. And some people, people are always gonna be judgmental. People are always gonna not accept them and stuff like that. But people sometimes don’t even know their story and how they got there. That’s why sometimes you’ve gotta be more open about certain things because you just don’t know people’s story."
In a subsequent tweet, Cardi pointed out a specific headline that she says was being "misleading" by not providing the full story.
"Wow.. this headline is so misleading for something that is so serious," she wrote, adding that she was sharing a video of the IG Live in question "for CONTEXT."
In a recent essay, Richard Gadd, star and writer of Baby Reindeer, looked back on first opening the one-man show version of the autobiographical story in Scotland in 2019. At the time, Gadd said, he was imagining "picket lines outside the venue" forcing him to shut down the show. These same voices, he added, would want to convince him that "storylines of internalized shame are not helpful."
Below, see the trailer for Baby Reindeer, which has received critical acclaim since hitting the streamer earlier this month.
