Cardi B threatened with lawsuit over Marge Simpson artwork

Cardi B may have legal action on her hands. She has been threatened with a lawsuit over recreating a piece of artwork in which Marge Simpson wears a Thierry Mugler dress revealing her backside. Cardi B did not ask for permission before she recreated the original 2013 artwork by Alexsandro Palombo when dressed up for Halloween this year.

The rapper had dressed up as the iconic Simpsons character Marge in her trademark tall blue hair and yellow skin makeup. The pose is also strikingly similar as Cardi B turns her back on the camera in order to show off her posterior through the cut-out dress. Palombo had made the original artwork as part of a wider Marge Simpson series, turning the character into a fashion icon and commenting on the freedom of women.

Palombo wrote on Instagram, “We wrote to Mrs Cardi B and collaborators how come that they never contacted us for authorisation to use the artwork and didn’t mention or credit the artist, violating Meta policy about intellectual property rights. Still no answer.”

He added, “Cardi B and her collaborators have used my artwork without any authorisation, debasing its original meaning and only to amplify their image with a clear commercial purpose that has nothing to do with that path of social awareness that has always characterised my works.

Palombo then suggested that everyone “(Extra)ordinary people” are more than welcome to use the images of his artwork for any non-commercial purposes. He then wrote, “To everyone else: Stop stealing [from] artists.”

Then Claudio Volpi, Palmobo’s lawyer, said, “Cardi B has illegitimately appropriated the work of Alexsandro Palombo for mere business purposes in defiance of the most elementary rules on copyright and Instagram policies, with the consequent serious risks, both of compensation and of discredit for her public image”. However, the lawsuit has not yet been filed.