Cardi B blames 'government' after falling off chair at Las Vegas concert, later claims video is AI

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: Rapper Cardi B was performing at the T-Mobile Arena when she took a backward plunge off a stage chair during her 'Little Miss Drama Tour.' However, she followed it up with a bizarre deepfake denial that had fans scratching their heads.

The 33-year-old Bronx native was midway through her 2018 hit 'Thotiana' when disaster struck. Dressed in a skimpy red ensemble, Cardi leaned back in a folding chair as if she were attempting a trust fall. But the chair tipped, and down she went, landing flat on her back amid gasps from the crowd.

Cardi B chair fall goes viral

The fall happened around 10 pm local time during the Las Vegas leg of Cardi B's tour, which has been packing arenas.

Video footage shows her arching her back dramatically while clutching her microphone tightly. The chair gave way beneath her, and she thudded onto the stage. The dancers, clad in matching outfits, quickly rushed to check on her and then continued the performance.

Cardi B was unfazed and popped right back up once the track ended. "That was the government. That was the government!" she quipped to the roaring audience.

She dusted herself off and blew kisses before resuming her performance. She did not sustain any visible injuries other than possibly a bruised ego. That said, Cardi B has a penchant for stage stumbles. In a 2023 Oscars clip, she nearly face-planted en route to her seat. She also stumbled during a 2024 tour stop in Miami.

The rapper reposted the clip herself on X with a conspiracy theory of her own. "Can someone put a community note on this? This video is clearly AI," she declared, though it was unclear whether she was continuing the running joke.

Cardi B clashes with DHS over ICE comments

Cardi B’s "government" zinger came after her eyebrow-raising comments two days earlier. During a prior tour stop, the rapper defended her immigrant fans and vowed to fend off Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with bear mace if they crashed the party.

"If ICE comes in here, we’re going to jump their asses," she declared from the stage. "I got some bear mace in the back. They aren’t taking my fans, bi**h. Let’s go!"

The Department of Homeland Security responded with a snarky clapback, referencing Cardi B’s 2016 admission of drugging and robbing men while working as a stripper in New York. "As long as she doesn’t d*ug and rob our agents, we’ll consider that an improvement over her past behavior," the department wrote on X.

Cardi B fired back by pivoting to the Jeffrey Epstein files, unsealed just weeks earlier by the Justice Department. "If we talking about d*ugs let’s talk about Epstein and friends dr*gging underage girls to r*pe them," she posted. "Why y’all don’t want to talk about the Epstein files?" The files were released on January 30 and included more than 38,000 mentions of high-profile names such as Bill Clinton, although the former president has denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

Cardi B has previously addressed her stripper-era confessions. "I made the choices that I did at the time because I had very limited options," she said in 2019. "I was blessed to have been able to rise from that, but so many women have not. Whether or not they were poor choices at the time, I did what I had to do to survive."