The husband of Cardi B’s manicurist has been charged with setting his wife’s brand-new Bronx nail salon ablaze last month, the FDNY announced Wednesday as they released surveillance footage of the alleged firebug in action.
Nguyen Bui, husband of Jenny Bui – who just last month styled the rapper’s nails for the VMA’s – was busted by fire marshals on Oct. 11 and charged with arson, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment in connection to the destructive Sept. 28 fire, the department said.
DVR footage, also released by fire officials Wednesday, shows a man later identified as Bui lighting napkins on fire and tossing them into a pile of boxes and stock in the center of Cianna Creations Nails & Spa on East Tremont Avenue in Throgs Neck.
He then casually strolls out of the salon before the footage shows the room becoming smoky, and a spark growing into a massive blaze.
The new space, named after Jenny’s 17-year-old daughter, was set to open later this month – decked out with nail stations with white marble counters, elaborate chandeliers and $12,000 massage chairs with custom crystal sinks.
Jenny had already purchased $10,000 in OPI and Valentino nail polish products and $3,000 in Swarovski crystals for the space. But nearly everything was destroyed in the two-alarm fire.
“I lost it all,” Jenny, 54, previously told The Post, estimating that the blaze caused $100,000 in damage.
Bui had just landed at the airport after a visit to Canada, where she was caring for her sick brother, when a neighbor next door to the salon phoned her about the blaze, she said.
“I thought it was a joke,” Bui said. “I drove so fast I almost got into a car accident. Everything was gone – I was about to pass out.”
She said she’d even gushed to Cardi B – her client since 2013 – about her new place while styling her sculpted square-shaped nails, painted with silver chrome gel, for the VMAs.
“I was telling her how hard I worked on opening the salon,” Bui said.
In the aftermath of the fire, she set up a GoFundMe page in hopes of regrouping her losses.
By Wednesday, the page had only raised $8,458 of its $150,000 goal.
“I’ve been [remodeling] and fixing this location to celebrate my grand opening on October 27th, and because of this tragedy I lost it all,” she wrote on the crowdfunding page.
“I couldn’t even file for insurance because I wasn’t open for business yet, so sadly all my hard work and investment on all my beauty products got all burned down.”
Jenny, a married mom-of-five whose shop had previous outposts in Harlem and in the South Bronx, said she is grateful for the donations from her loyal customers and friends.
“I am so heartbroken and sad that everything I worked hard for [was] all taken away,” she said. “[But] I’m so grateful for all of the support.”