Kelly Rowland, center, weighed in on the public feud between female rappers Nicki Minaj, left, and Cardi B, right. The 37-year-old pop singer begged the two rappers to stop feuding and focus on women’s fight for equality in the aftermath of Serena Williams‘s loss at the 2018 U.S. Open women’s championship.
Nicki and Cardi made the headlines for the wrong reasons this past weekend when Cardi threw a shoe at Nicki’s head at a Harper’s Bazaar ICONs party during NY Fashion Week.
In an interview with E! News, Kelly, who is pictured seated 2nd from right, said sexism robbed Serena of a 24th Grand Slam title at the 2018 U.S. Open when the chair umpire deducted 1 point and a full game from Serena for her on-court conduct violations.
Serena was penalized severely after she broke her racket and called chair umpire Carlos Ramos a “liar” and a “thief”.
Kelly said what happened to Serena was as an example of why women need to battle misogyny rather than fight each other.
“I think in a time where Serena Williams is fighting for equality — I love both Nicki Minaj and Cardi B and I think that they are extremely talented — and in a time when she is fighting for women’s equality, we just can’t be fighting. There’s no time for us as women to fight and they are just so talented and I just genuinely love them both so much, but it’s just not the time. We have way bigger issues as women, you know what I mean?”
Kelly joked that she’s neutral like “Switzerland” in the hip-hop feud between 25-year-old Cardi and 36-year-old Nicki, who may believe the young culture vulture is encroaching on her hip-hop territory.
The Destiny’s Child singer accused the official of double standards for punishing Serena while going easy on male players for more outrageous behavior.
But not everyone agreed. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who won 18 Grand Slam titles in her illustrious career, defended the chair umpire in an opinion editorial she wrote for the New York Times on Monday.
“We cannot measure ourselves by what we think we should also be able to get away with. In fact, this is the sort of behavior that no one should be engaging in on the court,” wrote Martina. She is pictured at right with tennis legend Chris Evert, who was one of the ESPN announcers on Saturday.
Martina added that Serena was partly right for detecting a double standard, but she was wrong to apply a standard of, “If men can get away with it, women should be able to, too.”
“I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the right way to behave to honor our sport and to respect our opponents?” Martina wrote.
She noted that, female tennis players must conduct themselves respectfully on the court, and not lower themselves to behaving like men.
“It’s difficult to know, and debatable, whether Ms. Williams could have gotten away with calling the umpire a thief if she were a male player,” Martina wrote.
“But to focus on that, I think, is missing the point. If, in fact, the guys are treated with a different measuring stick for the same transgressions, this needs to be thoroughly examined and must be fixed.”
Photos by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images, Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
