Cardi B responds to backlash amid referring to Met Gala dress designer as 'Asian'

There was a flood of extraordinary looks at the 2024 Met Gala, and Cardi B.'s miraculous moment on this year's carpet was pretty hard to miss.

However, the rapper has faced backlash for identifying the Chinese designer behind her dress, Sensen Lii, by ethnicity as opposed to by name during an interview with Vogue's Emma Chamberlain on Monday evening.

When asked about who made her dress, Cardi responded saying, "It's this amazing designer. They're Asian and everything."

Cardi's statement was quickly criticized online for coming off as racially insensitive through loads of comments.

However, the rapper later responded to the backlash in a now-deleted video that later resurfaced on YouTube saying, "When I was on the red carpet, I was very scared because the dress was supposed to be on a little podium and I've been practicing how to pose on the podium, but at the carpet I wasn't allowed to use the podium. So I had a lot of things on my mind and I was being rushed to the front of the line."

"So when I was getting interviewed, I kind of forgot to pronounce the designer's name because his name is a little bit complicated," she added. "So I was like, 'Damn, how to pronounce his name!' Like, my mind was just racing."

She also spoke about how identifying the designer as "Asian" was not intended to come off as offensive.

The "Up" rapper continued, "I said 'Asian designer' because I knew the designer was Asian but I didn't, I wasn't sure what nationality the designer was. And I feel like it's offensive if I was to be like, 'Oh, some Chinese designer' or 'some Korean designer' or 'some Vietnamese designer.'"

She also pointed out that she didn't want to get someone's nationality mixed up.

The designer did not respond to the backlash, but did repost a "thank you" note Cardi posted on her Instagram Story saying, "I have to give another thank you to @windowsen I chose you because of your amazing talent and you came through really making this Met Gala a night to remember @sensenlii."

In line with this year's dress code "The Garden of Time," the inspiration behind Cardi's dress was associated with fertile, vast black soil and all the beautiful flowers that grow from it, according to a post shared by Windowsen.

The fashion label also shared that the dress was created by using nearly 3000 meters of organza, "symbolizing the vastness of the land."