Contemporary Italian pop artist AleXsandro Palombo is considering filing a lawsuit against rapper Cardi B for a photo she shared on her Instagram page this past Halloween.
The photo features Cardi B as the cartoon character Marge Simpson dressed in a revealing outfit. According to Insider, Palombo, who uses images from The Simpsons in his own work, said the artist recreated his work without proper credit.
Cute Marge’s raspy groan of disappointment.
“Cardi B and her collaborators have used my artwork without any authorization, 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 characterized my works,” Palombo said in a statement.
Palombo’s Marge Simpson artwork was inspired by a dress created by late French fashion designer Thierry Mugler. Cardi B’s costume seems to be inspired by Palombo artwork featuring the same dress. In her Instagram post, she credits Mugler but not Palombo.
In his Instagram post explaining the situation, Palombo said that his lawyer has contacted Cardi B but has not heard back. He writes that his artwork was part of a 2013 “Marge Simpson Style Icon” series, which he created “with the intention of transforming Marge in a style icon; a work of reflection on women’s emancipation and gender equality through the most iconic moments of the last 100 years in fashion costume.”
In October, Cardi B was cleared of any wrongdoing in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against her by a man who said he was “humiliated” when the rapper used an image of his tattoo on the sexually suggestive cover of her debut mixtape, Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1.
