Cardi B clapped back at Carole Baskin Thursday in response to the “Tiger King” star’s complaints that her “WAP” music video with Megan Thee Stallion encourages animal cruelty by its use of big cats.
“I’m not gonna engage with Carole Baskin on that,” Cardi said in an interview with i-D. “Like, that’s just ridiculous you know? Oh, Lord. Like, girl you killed your goddamn husband.”
In an Aug. 9 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue voiced concerns about a few scenes in the “WAP” video that include wild cats. Although she astutely pointed out that the cats look photoshopped and that “it didn’t look like the cats were really in the rooms with the singers,” she thinks the shots were likely procured by a “big cat pimp.”
“You have to pose a wildcat in front of a green screen to get that image and that doesn’t happen in the wild. It can’t happen in sanctuaries like ours where cats have plenty of room to avoid a green screen (or would shred it if offered access and could die from ingesting it),” she said. “That tells me they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps, probably even one of the ones shown in Tiger King, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, who make a living from beating, shocking and starving cats to make them stand on cue in front of a green screen in a studio. That’s never good for the cat.”
Baskin also says Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s video “glamorizes the idea of rich people having tigers as pets.”
That said, Baskin doubts that viewers will even notice the cats with everything else that’s going on in the video.
“My guess is that most people won’t even see the photoshopped cats in the scenes because the rest of it is so sexually explicit,” she said.
10 Best Paid Actors of 2020, From Jackie Chan to Dwayne Johnson (Photos)
In its annual calculation of Hollywood's top earning stars, Forbes looked at the earnings between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020.
10. Jackie Chan -- $40 million
These days, the 66-year-old martial-arts star makes the bulk of his earnings from endorsement deals, Forbes reported.
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9. Adam Sandler -- $41 million
The comedian earned raves for the indie "Uncut Gems" but raked in most of his money from a lucrative Netflix deal that was extended in January for four more films.
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8. Will Smith -- $44.5 million
The action star has had a string of box office hits in the last year, from "Aladdin" to "Gemini Man" to January's "Bad Boys for Life."
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7. Lin-Manuel Miranda -- $45.5 million
The creator and star of "Hamilton" scored big time when Disney paid $75 million for film rights to hit musical, and an adaptation of his first Broadway hit, "In the Heights" is also in the works.
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6. Akshay Kumar -- $48.5 million
The Bollywood star, who has a TV series in the works for Amazon Prime, earns the bulk of his money from endorsement deals.
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5. Vin Diesel -- $54 million
Even though "F9" was pushed from its planned April release, the action star still cashed in as a producer on the animated Netflix series "Fast & Furious Spy Races."
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4. Ben Affleck -- $55 million
The former big-screen Batman has earned bank thanks to a series of Netflix movies like "Triple Frontier" and "The Last Thing He Wanted."
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3. Mark Wahlberg -- $58 million
In addition to the Netflix hit "Spencer Confidential" earlier this year, Wahlberg has raked it in as a producer of shows like "Ballers" and the nonfiction hit "McMillions."
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2. Ryan Reynolds -- $71.5 million
According to Forbes, the "Deadpool" star earned a cool $20 million on each of his two Netflix movies, "6 Underground" and the upcoming "Red Notice." He also stars in and produced the upcoming feature "Free Guy" and narrates and produces the ABC competition series "Don't."
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1. Dwayne Johnson -- $87.5 million
For the second year in a row, The Rock tops the Forbes list -- including a $23 million payday for Netflix's "Red Notice" as well as his work as a star-producer on HBO's "Ballers" and last winter's "Jumanji: The Next Level."
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Forbes magazine calculated earnings between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020
In its annual calculation of Hollywood's top earning stars, Forbes looked at the earnings between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020.