Earlier this month, Normani and Cardi B released the music video for “Wild Side”, leading Lil Nas X to tweet that it’s “the best video I have ever seen in my entire life”. The artists, however, have now been accused of queerbaiting during Cardi B’s rap verse.
During the rapper’s feature in the video, the two musicians are shown embracing and dancing against each other while naked – leading to accusations from some LGBTQ+ community members that the artists were profiting off of queer audiences.
Responding to the criticism on Twitter, Cardi B – who revealed she was pregnant with her second child at the BET awards – explained that she was “trying to hide a whole baby bump”.
Further, the rapper stated, “I don’t like this new ‘queerbaiting’ word,” explaining that she has previously been open about her bisexuality and sexual experiences with women.
“I feel like (queerbaiting) pressures artists to talk about their sexuality or their experiences that they don’t feel comfortable speaking about. If an artist kisses a girl on a video, does that mean she gotta show videos (and) text (with) other women?” she continued.
In 2018, Cardi B was also accused of queerbaiting after featuring on Rita Ora’s “Girls” alongside Charli XCX and Bebe Rexha. “We never try to cause harm or had bad intentions with the song,” she responded. “I personally myself had experiences with other women, shit with a lot of women!”
Billie Eilish recently received accusations of queerbaiting for her “Lost Cause” music video, which dropped June 2. Besides the video, which sees Eilish and a group of girls rolling around on top of each other in bed at a sleepover, Eilish captioned a behind-the-scenes photo on Instagram, “I love girls” – both leading to criticism for hinting at being queer without actually being queer.
“I’m tireeeddddddd,” posted Eilish alongside a selfie the day after the accusations – whether it was in response to the queerbaiting discourse is unclear.
On Dazed Beauty, we broke down all the best beauty looks from “Wild Side”. Check it out here, and watch the “Wild Side” music video below.