Biden Backer Cardi B Hit with Lawsuit Over Alleged Defamation of Trump Supporter
Rapper Cardi B, who has endorsed and recently interviewed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, is being sued after she allegedly defamed supporters of President Donald Trump as “racist” online.
The vulgar rapper’s sister, Hennessy Carolina, as well as Hennessy’s girlfriend, Michelle Diaz, become involved in a dustup at a Long Island, New York, beach on Sept. 6, and Cardi B shared video snippets of the encounter on Twitter that day.
One man in the video was wearing a signature red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently showing his support for President Donald Trump.
“You wanna know why joe gotta talk to me Candice cause I have the #1 song & yet my sister can’t go to the beach in the Hampton’s wit out trump supporters harassing cause they were by themselves & Santa Claus was harassing my sis GF all because they are a Afro/Hispanic gay couple,” Cardi B tweeted, along with the video of the confrontation.
The video shows a heated confrontation, but the context is unclear.
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
You wanna know why joe gotta talk to me Candice cause I have the #1 song & yet my sister can’t go to the beach in the Hampton’s wit out trump supporters harassing cause they were by themselves & Santa Claus was harassing my sis GF all because they are a Afro/Hispanic gay couple https://t.co/OLQX2mrzbp pic.twitter.com/ISfJStODme
— iamcardib (@iamcardib) September 6, 2020
Cardi B also later shared audio of Carolina and Diaz discussing their vision of events, in which they claim they were targeted over their race and because they are in a lesbian relationship.
In a post on Instagram, the rapper labeled the beachgoers as “racist MAGA supporters” and claimed they harassed her sister and her sister’s girlfriend because they were nonwhite and gay, Fox News reported.
Cardi B wrote that the beachgoers were supporters of the president “that are linching [sic], racist cop shootings and killing black men all cause their leader make them feel like they could do so,” the report said.
“My sister couldn’t even park her car today with out this man harassing her girlfriend soon as the camera cane [sic] out they started being sweet,” she said, according to Fox News.
That Instagram post has since been deleted by the rapper.
According to the people on the other end of the confrontation, though, the video shared by the rapper was heavily edited, and Carolina and Diaz were the aggressors.
The video shared by Cards B showed Carolina proclaiming, “I’ll beat the f— outta you.”
An attorney for the Trump supporters defended his clients in a statement to WABC-TV in New York.
“These peaceful Suffolk County residents were quietly enjoying a Sunday at the Smith Point beach with their families, when rap celebrity Hennessy Carolina suddenly approached them, raging, spitting, insulting, assaulting, defaming and threatening them, all the while videotaping them because one of them wore a MAGA hat,” attorney John Ray told the outlet.
“Then Hennessy, Cardi B and celebrity model Michelle Diaz deviously edited the videotape and published the edited version all over social media, across the world for all to see, and maliciously falsely labeled these residents and their families as ‘N…s’ and as racists,” the attorney said.
“Real threats of harm were made. They live in fear now. Their reputations have been ruined. We seek substantial damages,” he said.
Carolina is being sued for alleged assault, battery, defamation and civil rights violations.
Cardi B was not present during the altercation, but she is being sued for defamation and civil rights violations, as is Diaz.
The altercation and Cardi B’s decision to share it online came just over two weeks after she interviewed Biden in a heavily edited interview for Elle magazine.
During the interview, Biden praised the 27-year-old rapper — whose sexually explicit song “WAP” is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — as being among a generation of people who will change the world.
“You’re the smartest, the best-educated, the least-prejudiced and the most-engaged generation in American history,” he told Cardi B.
Added Biden, “And you’re going to change things. You’re gonna change them. You’re the reason I have such incredible hope. I really mean it. I’m not trying to be nice. It’s a fact. That’s what’s gonna change things.”
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