PETA has weighed in on the appearance of exotic cats in the “WAP” video by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.
“It’s about p***y liberation – not exploitation,” the organization tweeted at the rap stars. “Keep that tiger and leopard print look, lose the ‘pet’ cats.”
In a statement, PETA went further. “If Tiger King taught us anything, it's that tigers and other wild animals are abused for music videos, selfies, and gawking roadside zoo visitors. So if real animals were used instead of computer-generated imagery, the message sent is that animal exploitation is Okurrr—and it isn’t.
“If Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion really care about p***y liberation, they wouldn't use suffering big cats as props.”
The steamy video, which has amassed more than 67 million views since it debuted Friday, includes scenes showing the rappers in the same room as tigers and leopards.
The animals were inserted into the video by the visual effects team at Russia’s Digital Axis.
Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue – and the Tiger King series – told Billboard she is relieved that the tigers and leopards were never in the same room as Cardi and Megan. Still, they had to be filmed in an unnatural environment in order to be digitally added into the video.
“That tells me they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps, who makes a living from beating, shocking and starving cats to make them stand on cue in front of a green screen in a studio,” she said. “That's never good for the cat.”
Baskin added that the appearance of the big cats in the video only glamourizes “the idea of rich people having tigers as pets.”