New mom Cardi B adds VMA to family
NEW YORK — Cardi B, in her well-known silly demeanor, “opened” the 2018 Video Music Awards — not with a performance, but with cute jokes.
The new mom was onstage Monday at New York’s Radio City Music Hall pretending to hold a baby, but she then revealed to the audience that it was actually a Moonman, which she won earlier in the night for song of the summer for her No. 1 hit, “I Like It,” with Bad Bunny and J Balvin.
The rapper was the top contender of the night with 10 nominations. She gave birth to Kulture Kiari Cephus last month and is up for video of the year with “Finesse,” her collaboration with Bruno Mars. The song’s video is nominated for four other honors.
For the top prize, Cardi B and Mars was competing with Childish Gambino’s “This Is America,” Drake’s “God’s Plan,” Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “Apes—t,” Camila Cabello’s “Havana” and Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left to Cry.”
Nicki Minaj won the first televised award — best hip hop — and checked comedian Tiffany Haddish for dissing girl group Fifth Harmony, now on hiatus.
After congratulating ex-Fifth Harmony Camila Cabello on her five nominations, presenter Haddish said sarcastically, “Hi Fifth Harmony.” When Minaj accepted an award moments later, she looked to Haddish and said, “Don’t be coming for Fifth Harmony because Normani is that (chick).” Normani currently has her first hit apart from the group with the Khalid-assisted “Love Lies.”
There was a political moment when Logic was joined onstage by young immigrants wearing Tshirts that read, “We are all human beings,” to protest the Trump administration’s separation of migrant children from their parents after they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The rapper wore a T-shirt that read, “(Expletive) the wall.”
Ariana Grande won best pop video and thanked her fiance Pete Davidson “for existing.”
As for the top nominees, Beyoncé and Jay-Z were behind Cardi B with eight bids for “Apesh—t,” filmed at the Louvre museum in Paris. Gambino’s “This Is America,” which tackles racism and gun violence, earned him seven nominations, while Drake, who gave away $1 million dollars to Miami residents in his “God’s Plan” clip, scored seven nods.