Offset Crashed a Cardi B Performance to Apologize
Offset showed up uninvited at his estranged wife’s job with flowers and an apology, certain that a big, public gesture would win back her love and get to the part of the movie with the blooper reel. Unfortunately, the blooper reel got started a little early, because Offset’s wife is Cardi B, her job was performing at the Rolling Loud Festival in Los Angeles. Let’s see how she reacts to being unexpectedly put on the spot in front of a global audience, as Offset ambushes her on stage with a big flower display reading “Take Me Back Cardi” right before her performance.
Offset must have had the help of romantic-comedy-minded organizers at the festival or inside Cardi B’s management team—someone gave him a mic and let him drag those flowers onto the stage. Publicity stunts would not be out of character for the couple: Cardi B announced her pregnancy on Saturday Night Live in April, using staging and costuming to keep her baby bump a secret until the second musical performance; Offset surprised Cardi B with a public proposal on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. (It must have been quite a surprise, because they had already secretly gotten married.) But Cardi B seemed genuinely horrified at Offset’s stunt on Saturday, and the whole sad mess looks a lot more like a disastrous misreading of the room on Offset’s part than a PR stunt.
That is not how things went for Heath Ledger and Julia Styles! Of course, Ledger only interrupted soccer practice; Offset chose to stage his big public gesture moments before Cardi B became the first female headliner at Rolling Loud, making a night that should have been all about her all about him instead. The most valuable players here are her backup dancers, who stayed in position throughout the incident.
This isn’t the first time Offset put public pressure on his wife in an attempt to repair his marriage since they split earlier in the month; it’s not even the first time he did it this weekend. In fact, it’s not even the first time he’s done this at this year’s Rolling Loud festival: after begging Cardi B to take him back in an Instagram video on Friday, he stopped by the festival’s first night, where 21 Savage brought him on stage and got the crowd to chant “Cardi, take Offset back”:
After her performance on Saturday, Cardi B asked her fans to leave Offset alone, telling them on Instagram that “the whole coming at my baby father bullshit, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” There are no heroes in this story, but there is a villain: the entire western canon of art, literature, and music.