Cardi B: This is not entertainment

Cardi B’s ex isn’t showing any signs of slowing down in his attempt to wreak havoc on her life, despite their separation and pending divorce. 

Just days after announcing via Instagram that she gave birth to her fourth child with her current partner Stefon Diggs, her ex shared a quick post-and-delete implying the baby is his.

His comment was in response to stories and memes circulating about paternity laws in the state of Georgia. Essentially, the state’s law stipulates that if a woman is married, her husband is presumed to be the legal father of any child born during their marriage, regardless of biological paternity – and this is the case unless there is a formal challenge in court. But Georgia law also states that Stefon can file for legitimation, which would give him legal rights to their child. 

Whether there is a case to be made for her ex’s claim or not aside, all the legal jargon in the world can’t distract us from his true intentions. We all know he has no genuine intention of assuming legal, physical, financial, and certainly not emotional responsibility of the child. Instead, he’s aiming to do what he’s always done - which is to embarrass, degrade and disrespect her on as large of a scale as humanly possible and continue to center himself and undermine her as she enjoys a new era of love and success. 

Naturally, Cardi B’s response was swift. In her own post-and-delete, she took to X to address his comment, and more importantly, the concerns she has over his nonstop harassment.

“Ya’ll be thinking it’s funny. It’s not. It’s been over a year and I’m still being harassed and threatened. It’s all fun and games until it’s too late. It could get real nasty with just one upload. Leave me the F alone,” she wrote.

But it didn’t end there. Cardi used X’s Spaces feature to speak directly to fans in a moment of vulnerability – which is not uncommon for her. 

“I be trying to keep the peace but I’m really tired of getting harassed. And when I get harassed privately and I ignore, that’s when I start getting harassed publicly,” she said. “I have every single receipt if you wanna keep sending blogs to harass me. I can’t take it anymore. Sometimes I sleep and I wonder, like ‘this is not normal’. You see crime documentaries about women getting killed on social media. I’m a real tough bitch. There’s a difference between being tough and someone having an unhealthy obsession with you and I’m really starting to be concerned.”

Reading through comment sections of social media posts talking about the latest update in a cycle that has been ongoing for these two for years at this point, it’s clear that while the dialogue may have shifted, and generally, there is more awareness about all of the different ways abuse and harassment can look, there’s still a lot of work to be done, and as an audience, I worry that we are becoming more and more complacent with celebrities being abused in front of us. 

Overall, it seems that the mental duress Cardi B is under is not fully understood, appreciated or acknowledged by an alarming number of social media users. I was relieved to find a few commenters here and there who acknowledge that this is clearly abuse and harassment, but it was short-lived because there’s a disturbing cohort that shares in the thought that if someone rises to fame, the very real-life situations they deal with on a daily basis, no matter how dangerous, is all par for the course. Or a problem that can be solved by the money they make. Or, even worse, a form of entertainment for everyone else made clear by people posting GIFs of popcorn.

We’ve seen these misconceptions at play time and time again, particularly in cases where famous – or even famous-adjacent – women reveal that they have been victims of stalking, harassment, verbal, emotional or physical abuse.

As far back as 1981, Tina Turner revealed to PEOPLE magazine that her marriage to Ike Turner was incredibly violent. It was so bad that she recalled feeling like she was ‘living a life of death’.

"I didn't exist. I didn't fear him killing me when I left, because I was already dead. When I walked out, I didn't look back," she told the magazine more than 40 years ago.

Despite a 1986 memoir, a 1993 biographical film, and a 2018 musical all chronicling her horrible experiences with Ike, which included being beaten all the way to the hotel the night she would eventually find the strength to leave, she went decades fighting to be disassociated from him. And according to Dan Lindsay, one of the masterminds behind Tina, the HBO documentary, the irony of the PEOPLE interview was that the interview had the opposite effect.

“She thought this would be an opportunity to tell the truth of her relationship with Ike as a means to kind of separate from him. The irony, obviously, being that that decision, in some ways, cemented her identity with Ike in a way that she was never able to really detach from,” he explained.

Years later, in 2003, Bobby Brown was charged with battery for hitting Whitney Houston, leaving her face visibly injured. Their marriage was riddled with rumours and allegations of abuse in other forms, including substance and emotional. 

And even more recently in 2009, there was the infamous act of violence against Rihanna at the hands of Chris Brown. Every so often, this comes up as people question whether he has fully atoned for that night – and the many others that came after. In fact, it’s a topic of conversation on social media this week. And TikTok creators like this one have taken the liberty of reading the police report out loud just to remind people about the severity of that his violence against her. 

Even more recently, with the damning allegations against Diddy coming to light thanks in large part to the brave testimony of Cassie Ventura, who took the stand on the cusp of giving birth, the verdict and subsequent sentencing was simultaneously shocking but completely unsurprising for someone who wields the power and privilege he does.

I think all of this paints a sad picture. And as Melayna wrote, it’s not just Diddy. Though if anyone should have set the precedent for what it means to be fully and unanimously cancelled, shunned, jailed, excommunicated FFS, it should have been him. But that’s not to say that it didn’t matter when it was at Ike Turner, or Bobby Brown, or Chris Brown, or any other of the sickening abusers there are in Hollywood and in our hometowns. And abuse shouldn’t have to meet a certain requirement to warrant appropriate discipline. Because abuse is abuse. And abuse is exactly what we’re seeing unfold in Cardi’s case and she’s screaming from the top of her lungs to try and tell us all that she’s in trouble – yet still being platformed by some of our favourite people. 

All of this begs the question of what our role in all of this might be. Because despite their transgressions, Ike Turner went on to win a Grammy in 2007. Bobby Brown is still performing, with a recent appearance on Good Morning America and an upcoming concert with Toni Braxton, New Edition and Boyz II Men, though in 2018, he did create the Bobbi Kristina Serenity House in honour of he and Whitney’s late daughter meant for victims of domestic violence. And as for Chris Brown, he’s still selling out arenas. Diddy won’t be doing nearly as much time in jail as he should be. 

Sure, it’s not squarely on us. But who is it on, besides the perpetrators themselves? We could and should all be doing a better job of holding celebrities accountable – and that means making it harder for them to bounce back after such heinous and abusive behaviour. And making it so that the stories of Tina, Whitney, Rihanna, and every other victim, told or untold – and the warnings from Cardi - are not in vain.