Kai Cenat found himself at the center of viral buzz following an awkward encounter at the 2025 BET Awards when he seemingly failed to recognize Wale.
Cenat was live streaming from the Peacock Theater when he crossed paths with the "On Chill" artist in a parking garage. Wale was casually gaming on a Nintendo Switch when he walked by, and Cenat greeted him and asked what he was playing.
The rapper continued on without much exchange, and Kai admitted to his audience that he had no idea who he was speaking to.
Viewers quickly filled in the blanks, alerting Cenat that he had just interacted with Wale. The streamer then mispronounced the rapper's name as "Wally," prompting laughter from his crew and corrections from his associates.
Even after being told Wale is the artist behind hits like "Lotus Flower Bomb," Cenat still drew a blank. The clip quickly went viral, and Wale later approached Cenat while he was trying to interview Snoop Dogg.
"That shit making me look crazy now, just so you know," Wale told Cenat. "They running with it, but we'll talk later."
Once the second clip went viral, people on social media were split in their reactions. Wale himself left a comment under The Shade Room's repost of the awkward moment, claiming he didn't know cameras were rolling both times and didn't understand why Cenat didn't recognize him because they'd met in the past.
"This is crazy," wrote Wale. "I didn't know we was bein filmed both times..we played in a celebrity football game last year ...I was reallly [sic] confused."
However, by Tuesday, Wale had flipped the script. He reposted the viral interaction with Cenat, but this time the clip was followed with a Nintendo Switch logo. The post led users to speculate whether the interaction was a setup for an ad all along—or just quick thinking after the fact.
"Yall not on smash fr," Wale wrote in the post, which was tagged as an advertisement.
This isn't the first time Cenat's music knowledge has been under fire. Earlier this year, the streamer gave an unfavorable review of Lil Baby's WHAM album, which the rapper said was a result of streamers being too young to understand his music.
