Cardi B Says ‘I Always Get Anxiety’ to Outdo Her Met Gala Ensembles: ‘Imagine Competing with Yourself’

The rapper was ambitious Monday night by wearing not one but three showstopping gowns to the 2023 Met Gala (with a fourth look for the afterparty)

Cardi B is no stranger to nerves.

While the 30-year-old rapper is always a must-see on the Met Gala red carpet, Cardi B revealed that she feels a lot of pressure to consistently outdo what she wore the last time she walked the most coveted steps in fashion.

“Every single time that I got to the Met, it’s fun of course. But it’s like, I don’t know, like, after my first time going to the Met, I always get anxiety. And the anxieties just grow and grow and grow,” she said in her Vogue video getting ready for the 2023 Met Gala.

“Maybe because my looks are so spectacular that people just expect every year to be more amazing than the last, and it’s so hard because imagine competing with myself. That is sickening,” she added.

For the big event this year, the “Up” singer wore not one but three showstopping gowns (with a fourth look for the afterparty) on Monday night.

She left her hotel wearing a plunging, bejeweled pink dress with a matching oversized tulle headpiece. She arrived on the carpet in a black-and-white tie floral ballgown with a silver wig.

Both of her ensembles respectively channeled what Karl Lagerfeld and model Lily-Rose Depp wore for the 2017 Chanel haute couture Spring/Summer show, in keeping with the night’s “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” theme.

Her homage to Lagerfeld continued inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as her third outfit of the night was all about tweed — a Chanel signature. She wore a pink-and-black houndstooth bodycon dress designed with a plunging neckline, plus gemstones down the bodice and around the hem.

And for her final look, she slipped into a spaghetti-strap newsprint dress for an afterparty at The Box, which she attended with her husband Offset.

The New York native revealed how nervous she gets before attending the invite-only event during an interview with Vogue.

“The anxiety,” Cardi said. “You know sometimes I be like, ‘I’m not doing the Met Gala next year, I just can’t do it,’ like it’s bad for my health.”

The mother of two admitted her nervousness comes from a fear of “bad pictures, people not liking my outfit, like it’s just everything, the pressure!”