Cardi B Throws Mic Into Crowd After Drink Hits the Stage

Last month, Las Vegas performer Adele threatened to murder anyone who threw something at her as she performed. But when a concertgoer in that city made an on-stage toss at actor and rapper Cardi B this weekend, her reaction was notably restrained by comparison. Instead, she threw her microphone toward the offending fan, a response that, remarkably, didn’t cause even a blip in her vocals.

The show was at Drai’s Beachclub, a rooftop venue atop the Las Vegas strip’s Cromwell Hotel (which old timers might recall as the Barbary Coast Hotel). According to local broadcast station News 3, tickets to the show were priced at $200 for men and $150 for women, doubtlessly the club’s effort to compensate for the widely troubling gender pay gap. 

But whatever the price of admission, it wasn’t enough to quell the high spirits of one fan, who—during Cardi’s performance of her major label debut, “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”—”raised a white, decorated cup and tossed liquid in the 30-year-old rapper’s direction,” as the New York Post recaps.

Needless to say, the event was caught on video from multiple angles, both of which confirm what happened next: After a moment of shock when the drink’s droplets hit her, Cardi threw her mic, overhand, seemingly toward whoever had thrown the beverage. 

Cardi also appeared to yell something at her target, but it’s not clear what. Though her mic was no longer in her hand, the song—including her vocal track—continued to loudly play, obscuring whatever she might have said to the alleged drink-hurler. Cardi B reposted that video to her account on X, but did not elaborate on what she shouted from the stage.

In a video taken from another angle, we see security leap into the crowd following the incident, apparently leading the concertgoer out of the crowd.

Saturday’s incident marks a notable escalation in the seeming conflict between performers and the fans who claim to love them. In addition to Adele’s preemptive threat of homicide delivered in July, during which she said “Dare you to throw something at me and I’ll fucking kill you,” two weeks ago Atlanta-bred rapper Latto delivered a similar threat during a performance in Germany. 

A week before that, country performer Morgan Wallen—who was struck in the chest by a boot thrown by a fan—threw the shoe as far as he could away from the concertgoer in a likely effort to send the fan home with a bare foot. Saturday’s squabble might be the highest-profile example of a performer actually firing back at a fan, but it’s unlikely to be the last.