Cardi B has been known for her ferocious style and personality, but on the set of her video for “Bodak Yellow,” she may have met her match. As told to Genius in their “Making Of” series, director Picture Perfect talks about the making of the video (which currently has over 400 million views on Youtube), and recalled the tense moment with a cheetah during production that made her especially nervous.
Picture Perfect described the shooting of “Bodak Yellow” as a difficult project, mostly because of the scenes that contained wild animals in it. He wanted to shoot the video using the culture of Dubai, seeing as though they were on location there for a previous commitment that Cardi had. She wasn’t too hot on filming with the camel, but she was especially spooked after being attacked by a cheetah on set. At the 1:50 mark in the video below, you can see the raw footage of the incident — with Cardi holding the animal by a leash, rapping her verse before the feline snaps at her.
The crew behind the video replaced that cheetah with a more calm, docile one — and eventually convinced Cardi to film with it — before moving on to finish the shoot. Picture Perfect also talked about wanting to put a cheetah in the passenger seat next to her while driving a car — but thankfully he had a change of heart about that.