Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, the rap star known as Cardi B, raised eyebrows among both her fans and QAnon supporters after sharing maternity photos on social media this week.
The photos, which show the pregnant music artist on a motorcycle, stirred shock and outrage online after many noticed the word “pedophile” graffitied in white paint on the wall in the background.
The post was quickly flooded with remarks from fans, who demanded answers as to why the 31-year-old artist, who’s expecting her third child with ex-husband and rapper Offset, chose to take such photos.
“Why take a picture in front of graffiti that says pedophile???” one commenter asked.
Others argued that Cardi B sinisterly wanted to reveal her involvement in child abuse.
“The word pedophile is clearly in the background,” another Instagram user replied. “You decided to post this EVEN after it went through edit.. this is DISGUSTING. Guess you’re telling us who you really are.
The photos were also shared on the popular subreddit r/Conspiracy, where Redditors likewise accused the rapper of knowingly posing in front of the term.
“I went to look up her IG and this is absolutely the photo she chose and posted,” one user wrote. “The comments are all about this. It’s fucking weird 100%.”
Followers of the QAnon movement, the conspiracy theory that claims former President Donald Trump is working with a team of high-level government officials to topple a child-eating cabal of celebrity pedophiles, also took interest.
One prominent QAnon promoter known as Shadow of Ezra noted that the music star had previously worked for the fashion brand Balenciaga, which stirred controversy in 2022 after releasing an advertisement that showed children clutching teddy bears dressed in what many saw as BDSM-inspired clothing.
The ad campaign also included photographs of a purse on an office desk where court documents related to a Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law criminalizing advertising, promoting, presenting, or distributing child pornography were seen.
“Filth,” they said.
Cardi B eventually responded to the backlash in a post on X in which she denied knowing that the word was present in the background.
“First of all we literally picked a random street because paparazzi was hounding us everywhere.. this was supposed to be my original first picture and we had to edit the photos in minutes because the shoot got leaked,” she wrote. “Didn’t even have time to go over every detail because people were busy trying to expose my pregnancy.”
The rapper also denied claims that she was wearing Balenciaga at the time and pushed back on the assertion that she had a “team” of people helping her on the photoshoot.
“A team?? Btch my makeup artist touched up the picture because we didn’t have time for all that, it says the date and time nobody was paying attention to the graffiti… second if I wanted to be petty I would’ve posted a lot of memes last week,” she continued. “I KEEP TELLIN YALL TO LEAVE ME THE FUK ALONE !! If I’m saying I’m not on that time DONT MAKE ME GET ON THAT TIME. Unrist yourself!!”
While the rapper’s fans appear to be accepting her explanation, the situation remains anything but a coincidence to the QAnon crowd.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
