With record-breaking album sales and chart performance to her name, you might think this
female rap phenom's life has been nothing but blessed. Her childhood, however, was truly
scary and her young adult life was also marred by pain and heartbreak. This is the tragic
real-life story of Nicki Minaj.
When she was just five years old, Nicki Minaj left her native Trinidad to move to the U.S.
but the American dream she had built up in her mind was far from the reality awaiting her.
First, she was left in Trinidad to be raised by her grandmother. As Minaj explained in
her 2010 MTV News documentary, Nicki Minaj: My Time Now, it's typical for people from
the islands to send for their children once they've established themselves in the United
States, though it took longer than she expected.
"I thought it was gonna be for a few days, it turned into two years without my mother."
Once she finally did join her parents, she was in for another harsh surprise, admitting
"I thought it was gonna be like a castle. Like white picket fence, like a fairy tale."
Instead, she arrived at a home far from her expectations. Her first impression of New
York also shook her.
"I remember the smell. I could always remember the smell when I got out of the airport of
the snow, and I had never seen snow."
When she arrived, Minaj was in for another blow as she found her parents fighting like
never before, telling fans in her documentary -
"I was always very nervous, very afraid [...] My father would yell and curse a lot."
Minaj also alleged that her father was physically abusive, and, although they didn't know it
at the time, got addicted to crack soon after arriving in the States. Years later, in her
Queen documentary, the rapper recalled trying to protect her mother, standing in front of
her mother with her arms spread wide.
Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2010, Minaj revealed she turned to her faith for solace.
"When I first came to America, I would go in my room and kneel down at the foot of my
bed and pray that God would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother, because
I always felt like if I took care of my mother, my mother wouldn't have to stay with my father."
As Robert Maraj's addiction to drugs and alcohol took over, he became increasingly abusive.
Minaj's mother Carol described how frightening the situation got, telling The Sun in 2014
that Robert once set their home on fire while she was inside.
"My house was gone. The house was gone, all of my toys, all of my clothes, all of my memories."
Carol described that she wasn't the only victim - the whole family suffered.
"My husband used to get high on cocaine and alcohol and would come home and terrorise
the whole family [...] He was so violent. He would threaten us and keep us up all night."
Opening up about her childhood to Rolling Stone in 2010, Minaj revealed,
"I remember there being a lot of arguing, lots of screaming - there were holes punched
into the walls in anger, and cops being called to the house all the time."
Minaj lived in constant fear for her mother's safety, having nightmares about it. Minaj
also accused her father of being a thief, telling VIBE -
"I thought we would just be happy, but with a drug-addicted parent there is no such thing
as being happy. When you have a father who is stealing your furniture and selling it
so that he can buy crack, you suffer."
Things got so bad that Nicki Minaj actually thought about turning violent on her father.
As she confessed in a 2012 interview with Nightline-
"I wished he was dead."
Explaining what drove her to have such dark thoughts, she added,
"We were afraid for her life because whenever he would have a real bad outburst, he would
threaten to kill her."
Amazingly, Minaj is said to have forgiven her father, who had talked about his years
of sobriety on Nightline.
There are two sides to every story, however, and according to family sources who spoke
with TMZ, Robert wasn't aware that his daughter felt that way. While he conceded to having
issues, her statement allegedly impacted him greatly. What's more, the insiders went as
far as to tell TMZ that the "Anaconda" singer was exaggerating and that things were never
as bad as she made them out to be.
As Nicki Minaj grew up, so did her problems. Things weren't getting any better at home
and while she was still in high school, her own personal life began causing her grief.
Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2014, Minaj opened up about the pregnancy she decided
not to go through with as a teen. Referencing one particular line from a track off The Pinkprint
called "All Things Go" in which she raps,
"My child with Aaron, would've been 16, any minute."
She was dating an older guy at the time but was still a child herself and, as she recalled
-
"It was the hardest thing I'd ever gone through."
Despite revealing that the difficult decision has stayed with her through it all, the rapper
knows it was the right thing to do telling the magazine -
"I wasn't ready. I didn't have anything to offer a child."
As Rolling Stone pointed out, "All Things Go" wasn't the MC's first time opening up
about the experience. She initially did so on a mixtape track called "Autobiography"
but wasn't expecting many people to hear it because she was still an unknown. The second
time around, people certainly did.
Given her parents' relationship and her own experiences, it's no surprise Nicki Minaj's
outlook on love was tainted, thinking that fighting and arguing was part of marriage.
She tweeted about this in 2019.
"I [really] used to think love had to hurt [...] It's not easy to leave. Especially in
the world of IG where all [people] want to do is post relationship goal pics for clout
& attention. A man should make you feel safe, not afraid."
Minaj then alluded to her own toxic past, writing,
"I remember being so afraid to speak [because] I never knew when that person would be in
a particular mood and I could maybe say one wrong thing that would get me hit."
Although she never named names, she also opened up about the abusive relationship in her Queen
documentary, confessing to her fans,
"I let one human being make me so low that, like, I didn't even remember who I was. I
was scared to get in the studio, like, I didn't believe in myself."
Minaj credits learning to love herself with setting her free, concluding -
"If you wouldn't let a man treat your mother, your sister or best friend like that [because]
you LOVE them, then you wouldn't let a man treat YOU like that [because] you love YOU."
"I always tell my Barbs, I'm like 'Always be successful outside of a man."
Nicki Minaj and Meek Mill called it quits in late 2016 or early 2017 but as of February
2020, their post-breakup feud was still going strong. In fact, it reached a new level when
Minaj accused him of being abusive.
According to The Shade Room, Minaj was ticked off by Mill liking a meme that made fun of
her husband Kenneth Petty's outfit, so she took to social media to slam her ex before
firing off a serious accusation in her Instagram Story that he beat women.
Mill almost instantly responded, tweeting,
"The only way you can try to kill my career is to say I beat women..."
Mills' tweet then went on to reference Nicki's brother Jelani Maraj who, according to Page
Six, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for sexual assault. Minaj wasn't having
it and fired back moments later with additional accusations, writing -
"You beat your own sister and taped it [...] Kicked me in front [of] your mother and sent her
to the hospital."
Getting the final word in, Mill concluded,
"For clarification, I don't hit women."
In October 2019, Nicki Minaj said "I do" to her high school sweetheart, Kenneth Petty,
but their seemingly sweet love story has been tainted by Petty's criminal past. While Minaj
seems absolutely smitten, critics have been relentless in digging up dirt on Petty.
As TMZ reported in 2018, Petty spent nearly four years behind bars after being convicted
of first-degree attempted rape in April 1995. To this day, New York State lists him as a
level-two registered sex offender, and his criminal streak didn't end there. Petty returned
to jail for seven more years after being convicted of first-degree manslaughter and was released
in 2013.
Rather than enjoying her relationship, Minaj has repeatedly had to defend her beau. In
December 2018, she clapped back on Instagram addressing Petty's first arrest, writing -
"He was 15, she was 16... in a relationship. But go awf Internet. Y'all can't run my life.
Y'all can't even run y'all own life."
In 2019, she shut down accusations that Petty was a golddigger in a tirade on Queen Radio.
She slammed those who held that view, saying -
"How do you not understand happiness vs. clout?"
Despite everything she's gone through, Nicki Minaj has come out on the other side as a
strong, successful woman who has been shaped by her negative experiences in a positive
way. As her mom told The Sun, watching her own toxic relationship with Minaj's father
-
"It helped [Minaj] learn not to relive my life. She became strong and very conscious
of dominant and obsessive men. That helped her become the truly fierce person she is
today."
Minaj shared the same sentiment in her Queen documentary, telling fans that while some
may see her as abrasive, what they're really seeing is her strength.
"[It's] because I vowed from that age no man would ever abuse me, call me out my name - treat
me like that."
In addition to her home life, the borough she grew up in also helped shape her. In 2012
she told The Fader,
"I grew up in South Side Jamaica, Queens - I am South Side Jamaica, Queens."
That love is mutual.
My time again doc, logo bottom right, nicki talking to her fans in queens from car
"Stay in school! Stay in school! You hear me? Thank you baby, bye! I love you!"
In 2017, Minaj was presented with a key to the city. Not bad for a young girl from Trinidad
who arrived in the States with not much more than a dream.
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