If youâve been having some trouble keeping up with all of the Nicki Minaj drama circulating on the internet these last few weeks, you are not alone. Chances are, most of what youâve heard has revolved around Nickiâs assertion that one of her cousinâs friends got swollen testicles from the COVID vaccine, which apparently made him impotent, which apparently made his girlfriend leave him.
My cousin in Trinidad wonât get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure youâre comfortable with ur decision, not bullied
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021
Truly, a tweet this preposterous is impossible for the internet to ignore, which is why Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister debunked Minaj’s claims. Twitter is still roasting her for it almost two weeks later. For some observers, however, the testicular Minaj tweet looks an awful lot like a deflection; a distraction from the very real legal trouble she and her husband, Kenneth âZooâ Petty, are currently embroiled in. Legal trouble that could do Minajâs reputation a lot more damage than asking people to âpray on itâ before they get vaccinated. And yesterday, that legal trouble hit daytime TV when Jennifer Hough made a heart-rending appearance on The Real.
Houghâs interview follows a civil lawsuit she filed on Aug. 13 against Minaj and Petty. According to legal documents obtained by E! News last month, Houghâs suit accuses the couple of a litany of serious offenses. These include: harassment, assault, battery, sexual assault and sexual harassment, witness intimidation and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The suit also accuses Minaj of threatening and attempting to bribe Hough. At one point, E! reports, the suit states:
As a direct result of the actions of Defendant Minaj and Defendant Petty, [Hough] has been traumatized her entire life. Plaintiff has moved to multiple states to avoid intimidation and harassment by Defendant Minaj, Defendant, and their allies, legal teams, and fans.
If you havenât been following along in real time, you might be wondering where all of this stems from. To explain, we have to go way back to 1994. Specifically, Sept. 16, 1994âthe day a 16-year-old Hough accused a 16-year-old Petty of rape. Hough reported that Petty approached her while she waited at a Jamaica, Queens bus stop, pressed an object to her back, forced her into a nearby house, fought against her objections, and raped her.
Petty was subsequently charged with first degree rape, but on April 5, 1995, he pleaded guilty toâand was convicted ofâattempted rape in the first degree. (The offense listed on his conviction, however, states that âActual, Sexual Intercourseâ took place. It also states that he was in possession of a âKnife/cutting instrumentâ at the time of the attack.) Two days before his 17th birthday, Petty was sentenced to â18 to 54 monthsâ in a state penitentiary. He served nearly four years for the attack on Hough.
On his release, Petty returned to Queens and promptly began a relationship with a 17-year-old Nicki Minajâthen known by her real name, Onika Tanya Maraj. But Petty didnât stay out of trouble for long. By 2006âjust one year before Minaj would release her first mixtape, Playtime is OverâPetty pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges, following a 2002 incident in which he shot and killed a man named Lamont Robinson.
According to Billboard, Petty served seven years before entering a supervised release program in 2013. He stayed in the program until 2018âthe year he reunited with Minaj.
At that time, the coupleâs reunion prompted the internet and tabloid media to begin reporting on Pettyâs prior convictions in earnest. One report from TMZ that year, titled âNicki Minajâs BF Manslaughter Case Was Cold-Blooded,â stated:
Weâre told Petty drove to the crime scene with a group of cohorts, hopped out of the car, walked across the street where Robinson was hanging out, pulled out a gun … and shot him in the stomach three times. Our sources say he then fled in the vehicle with the group.
This kind of media attention quickly put Minaj on the offensive. In June 2019, she included Petty in her video for âMegatron.â The track includes the lyrics, âI fuck him like I miss him / He just got out of prison / Bitches be talking shit / But they ainât got a pot to piss in.â The following month, during a featured spot on Chance the Rapperâs âZanies and Fools,â Minaj rapped: âI met my husband when I was 17 out in Queens / If you love it, let it go, now I know what that means / While he was up North for a body, I bodied everybody and got known for my body.â
Also in 2019, during an episode of her Apple Music show, Queen Radio, Minaj claimed that Petty was âwrongfully accused … when he was 15 years old.â (Pettyâs arrest record clearly states he was 16 at the time of Houghâs assault.) Minaj went on to claim that Hough had attempted to recant her accusation, but didnât after she was threatened with legal penalties for doing so. (Hough has denied this.) Minaj also used the phrase, âWhite is right,â implying that Hough was a white woman. She is not.
âBut white is rightâ Nicki Minaj really wanted yâall to believe Jennifer Hough was a white woman to pretend her husbandâs offense was racially motivated…. thereâs no defending this smh https://t.co/t3HlsfoUaG
— Jess {fan acc} (@britneyxmariah) September 22, 2021
On another occasion, while defending Petty on Instagram in relation to the Hough case, Minaj claimed: âHe was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet. yâall canât run my life. Yâall canât even run yâall own life.â In The Real interview, Hough also denied the idea that she and Petty dated.
Undeterred by Pettyâs criminal history, or the negative publicity it was attracting, Minaj married him in October 2019. After moving from New York to Minajâs home in L.A., Petty was pulled over by Beverly Hills police. The police discovered that Petty had failed to register as a sex offender when he moved to Californiaâa condition left over from his 1995 conviction. On Sept. 9, Petty pleaded guilty during a virtual court hearing on the matter. He is expected to be sentenced in January 2022 and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Which brings us back to Houghâs appearance on The Real yesterday. Hough, visibly nervous and frequently tearful, cut a sympathetic figure. âIâm tired of being afraid,â she said. âI feel like the actions that were taken in regards to this whole situation have put me in a different type of fear.â
Hough went on to claim that, over the last couple of years, Minaj and Petty had âsent peopleâ repeatedly to try and negotiate a financial sum with her, in an attempt to buy her silence. She said that after consistently refusing to cooperate with the couple, threats on her life were made. âThe last message I received,â Hough said, âwas that I shouldâve taken the money âcause theyâre gonna use that money to put on my head.â
A Daily Beast article from March confirms that Hough had moved three times in 2020 alone, out of concern for her personal safety.
Houghâs appearance on The Real is bound to raise her public profile to a degree that might get uncomfortable for her. But it also caused something of a Minaj backlash on social media last night, even as the rapper attempted to boost the voices of her defenders by âlikingâ their positive posts about her.
The Real was a means for Hough to take back a narrative Minaj has used her considerable platform to try and control for the last three years. It was a means for Hough to show her humanity beyond salacious tabloid headlines. And it was a chance to explain the emotional and mental scars wrought by what happened to her in her teens, and how the fallout of that case continues to affect her now.
In 2018, on the track âNip Tuck,â Minaj compared herself to Teflon. She may have spoken too soon.
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