Nicki Minaj

The Woman Accusing Nicki Minaj And Her Husband Of Harassment Gives Her First On-Camera Interview

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Jennifer Hough, who says that Nicki Minaj and her husband Kenneth Petty have been harassing her over his 1995 rape conviction, appeared on The Real to address her current lawsuit against the couple and the residual effects of the original incident, for which she says she previously blamed herself. She says that after the initial incident, for which Petty served four years in New York prison and was eventually registered as a sex offender, she tried to hide from the world, blaming herself for his assault.

However, in recent years, she says her fear changed to one of Nicki Minaj’s power and influence. Hough recounts her conversation with Nicki in 2020 in which the star offered to fly Hough and her family to California in exchange for recanting her 1995 testimony and helping Petty clear his name from the sex offender registry. Petty had recently been arrested for failing to update his address when the couple moved from New York to California after getting married and has since pled guilty for failing to register as a sex offender. Hough, however, declined the offer, saying, “I told her, woman to woman, this really happened.”

She explains how the couple harassed her, sending representatives to her family members to negotiate payments to help them out, and eventually resorting to threats over her reluctance to assist them. “The last message I received was that I should have taken the money because they are gonna use that money to put on my head,” she says. Her intention with the lawsuit is to stand up to the couple and tell them that “you can’t do this to people — you shouldn’t do this to people… you can’t intimidate people to make things go better for you.”

You can watch the interview in the video above.

Lil Nas X’s Hit ‘Industry Baby’ Would Have Sounded Wildly Different With The Artist He Originally Wanted

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Last week, Lil Nas X revealed the two artists he was unable to secure features from on his debut album Montero. The first, Drake, was unable to participate as he was putting the finishing touches on his own album, Certified Lover Boy. Nas says he’d wanted Drake on “Dolla Sign Slime”; instead, Megan Thee Stallion filled in admirably. However, Nas never did reveal which song he wanted Nicki on, which would have been a coup for a former member of her hardcore stan army, The Barbz. He said she never responded to his requests.

Today, though, during a Twitter Q&A to support his album, Nas solved the mystery for his curious fellow Barbz. When he was asked which song from the album he originally sent to Nicki Minaj, he didn’t hesitate to answer: “Industry Baby,” the Daytrip-produced, Kanye West-assisted, Jack Harlow-featuring megahit that is currently burning up the airwaves and terrorizing Lil Boosie’s dreams.

Admittedly, it could have resulted in a wildly different, yet more organic sounding collaboration — while Jack’s part in the video would probably have played a lot differently with Minaj in his place. However, Jack acquitted himself pretty well and has been a good sport about the video’s content, even going as far as saying he wouldn’t mind reshooting the infamous shower scene.

As to why Nicki never got back to Nas: that remains a mystery, although she had plenty of reasons, from just recently becoming a mother to battling a harassment lawsuit as her husband Kenneth faced trial for failing to register as a sex offender when the couple moved to California. She also wouldn’t have had much time to promote the record thanks to “Ball-gate” and its resulting backlash. Perhaps when the dust settles, we’ll hear a remix, which has been her M.O. of late, helping Doja Cat’s “Say So” go No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart.

Montero is out now on Columbia.

Nicki Minaj Threatens And Doxxes A Guardian Reporter Who Tried To Contact Her Cousin For An Interview

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“Ball-gate” just stopped being funny. Nicki Minaj, who has been under fire for spreading anti-vaccine misinformation over the past week, is now doxxing and threatening a reporter who reached out to her relatives in Trinidad for comment on the story. Nicki posted photos and shared the WhatsApp phone number of the reporter on her Instagram Story, calling the reporter “a dirty hoe” and claiming that her family is hiding out from reporters.

Nicki shared WhatsApp screenshots of the conversation via her cousin in which the texter identifies themselves as a Guardian reporter named Sharlene Rampersad and asks whether he’s the cousin Nicki referred to in the original tweet. Although there’s no way to confirm that the text actually came from the named reporter, the texter asks to speak with Nicki’s cousin, and if possible the friend whose wedding was supposedly canceled due to adverse reactions to a COVID vaccine, as Nicki’s original tweet suggested.

However, this reporter crosses a line by intimating that a competing outlet, CNN, is also pursuing an interview. The texter suggests that CNN would reveal personal information about the cousin — something against the journalistic integrity policy of any legitimate news outlet — and assuring that the Guardian would not. Aside from being the dirtiest of dirty pool, this sort of thing isn’t common practice at most outlets and is actually against the law in many jurisdictions.

Nicki, interpreting this messaging as a threat, went off, posting the WhatsApp phone number that reached out to her cousin, as well as two photos of the reporter. Screenshots can be seen below.

While Nicki certainly has a right to be upset at the unsolicited contact, there’s 1. no proof that the texter actually is this person, and 2. absolutely no call to violate a person’s privacy to her 157 million Instagram followers, many of whom have previously shown a penchant for cyberbullying people just for sharing their unfavorable opinions of her latest singles. While Nicki insists that she’s being targeted for “asking questions,” the truth of the matter remains: The “questions” she’s asking have already been answered several times over, and her spreading misinformation is a dangerous tactic that could very well get more people hurt. The COVID-19 coronavirus has killed well over 650,000 people and conspiracy theories only harm the distribution of vaccines meant to save lives.

However, if the person who reached out to her relations really is the named reporter, then shame on her as well for violating so many tenets of journalistic integrity in the pursuit of a quote. She should, however, be reprimanded by her employer, not terrorized by online vigilantes at the behest of an angry musician — especially not one distracting from the serious work being done to combat the spread of a deadly pandemic. That hasn’t stopped Nicki from also lashing out on Twitter, tagging Rampersad in an all-caps rant quoting a day-old tweet criticizing her for spreading misinformation.

Lil Nas X Says Drake And Nicki Minaj Aren’t On ‘Montero’ For Good Reasons

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After a months-long gestation and a slew of mild controversies, Lil Nas X’s debut album Montero has finally arrived. The album turned out to be a star-studded affair, with appearances from major names like Doja Cat, Elton John, Megan Thee Stallion, and Miley Cyrus. However, one pair of prominent names were missing from the final tracklist, although according to Nas, it wasn’t from lack of effort on his part. During the triumphant young artist’s recent interview with New York’s The Breakfast Club, he revealed which stars were missing and explained their absences.

He explained that despite reaching out to both Drake and Nicki Minaj, he was unable to secure their features. “No reply from Nicki, Drake was still working on [Certified Lover Boy].” Nas accounted for Drake’s rejection by pointing out how busy he was on his own album. “Drake replied, ’cause you know Gee Roberson’s my manager,” he said. “Drake and Gee are cool. And he was still working on Certified Lover Boy and whatnot and he was 100 percent focused on that. This was like a few weeks ago and I understood completely, and he said he’s down to do something but [it was] just not the right time. He was trying to get his own sh*t together.”

When asked which song he wanted Drake on, Nas’ answer, “Dolla Sign Slime,” prompted some light roasting from Charlamagne, who wondered, “‘Slime’ is gang slang. Is Nas in a gang? Is Nas banging?” Ever the diplomat, Nas replied simply, “Next question,” with a shy grin. The hosts took a minute to educate him on the slang’s origins after he explained how it’s meaning has expanded for Gen Z — it’s a pretty funny moment.

Watch Lil Nas X’s interview with The Breakfast Club above.

Montero is out now via Columbia Records. Get it here.

Nicki Minaj Fans Are Now Protesting Outside The CDC’s Atlanta Headquarters For Some Reason

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While Nicki Minaj exercises her right to free speech (which, again, is not a blanket protection against being ridiculed over said speech), her fans are exercising their right to assembly, as Atlanta’s Tori Cooper of CBS46 reports. Cooper has posted a video on Twitter from outside the Center For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta depicting a crowd holding signs, marching, and chanting in an apparent protest of the agency’s vaccination recommendations. Among other slogans, they can be heard shouting, “Nicki Minaj told the truth to me, Fauci lied to me.”

I made this joke before, but it bears repeating: Yikes, indeed.

Nicki Minaj has become an unlikely avatar of the anti-vax movement supported by right-wing pundits and internet forum conspiracy theorists since tweeting on Monday, “If I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now.” That tweet was accompanied by one in which she referenced a cousin in Trinidad who told her about a friend who suffered an adverse reaction from the vaccine: Swollen testes and impotence. Since then, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (which is a completely separate organization from the CDC, by the way) and Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the United States, debunked the story, reminding the public that there’s no mechanistic reason for the vaccine to have such an effect.

Trinidad’s Health Minister Dr. Terrence Deyalsingh went one step further, holding a press conference to denounce the story as a tall tale after taking stock of hospital admissions and finding no one suffering from such symptoms. Meanwhile, television hosts like Stephen Colbert lampooned the anecdote for its middle-school-dating-rumor-style sourcing and the apparent hilarity of blaming obvious STD symptoms on COVID-19 vaccine side effects rather than owning up to infidelity. However, despite the obvious funny factor of the backlash against Nicki Minaj, the protest at the CDC, though anemic it may be, highlights just how unfunny Nicki’s misuse of her platform really is.