Rapper/singer Nicki Minaj has dominated U.S. and international headlines over the last week or so after she committed the unpardonable sin of tweeting about how she was going to do more research before making a decision on whether or not to get one of the Wuhan coronavirus vaccines.
She also got the attention of the Biden White House and health officials in Trinidad & Tobago after alleging that her “cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen,” a claim disputed not just by Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, but also Trinidad and Tobago’s Health Minister Dr. Terrence Deyalsingh.
As if having prominent government officials from two countries weigh in on the testicular status of Minaj’s cousin’s friend wasn’t wild enough, MSNBC’s resident conspiracy theorist Joy Reid also expressed her disappointment with Minaj. This led to a nasty war of words, with Reid falling back on her old ways later in the week in a homophobic segment suggesting that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who had defended Minaj and invited her cousin’s friend or that friend’s “former fiancée” onto his show, to visit and “talk with that gentleman and find out why it is that his, you know, future wife left him and just how large these melons were.”
“I think he should go and find out. It’s an investigative report that we need. Go and do it, Tucker, I know you wanna. You really, really wanna,” Reid went on, clearly amused as were the two guests she had on her program.
In any event, after outraging Twitter mobs, the spat with Reid, after even being invited by the White House to participate in a “phone call” about the vaccine, this story still isn’t over.
On her Instagram Friday, Minaj called out two reporters, one from The Guardian and the other from the UK’s Daily Mail, accusing them of “threatening” her family and “forcing” them to “hide out”:
“They’re forcing my family to hide out. This is what speaking up looks like. Millions of poor people are treated this way by the ppl you think are ‘the good guys.’ This is unconscionable.”
She posted screengrabs of what she said were WhatsApp private messages sent by Guardian reporter Sharlene Rampersad to Minaj’s cousin, wanting to speak with him and the friend who purportedly had become impotent from the vaccine and whose fiancée, according to Minaj, ditched him before their wedding over the matter.
Towards the end of the one-way conversation, Rampersad told Minaj’s cousin that “CNN is in the country looking for you” and that the network “won’t hesitate to reveal” personal information including the locations of Minaj’s cousin and “anything and anyone who is tied to you.”
Rampersad then told the cousin that “if you speak to me, we won’t reveal those details. So what do you say?”
Minaj proceeded to post the phone numbers for both Rampersad and Daily Mail mail senior reporter James Fielding, and also included a parting shot at Rampersad in particular.
“Sharlene Rampersad B*TCH YOUR DAYS ARE F*CKING NUMBERED YOU DIRTY HOE.”
The Guardian has already put out a statement denouncing Minaj. They did not deny her account of Rampersad’s blackmail tactics against her cousin, but did call it a “legitimate pursuit of a story”:
Just a wild guess here, but I suspect Minaj’s animus towards Rampersad is playing out as more personal because Rampersad is based in Trinidad and Tobago and likely knows more private information about Minaj’s family members than other reporters would.
Though Rampersad has not publicly commented on Minaj’s Instagram rant as of this writing (also, it appears Fielding does not have a Twitter account), she did retweet the Guardian’s statement. Prior to that, she portrayed herself as a reporter who was just trying to help her country fight the Wuhan virus, posting the below tweets and retweeting numerous stories about Minaj’s vaccine comments:
Minaj revealing the phone numbers of the two reporters has sparked yet another round of debates on social media on doxxing and whether it’s appropriate to strike back at journalists in such a way, with many suggesting that Rampersad issuing a not-so-veiled threat to Minaj’s cousin crossed a big line and left Minaj with little choice but to respond accordingly in order to protect her family.
Meanwhile, here’s how Twitter is treating large accounts that have either expressed support for or that have defended Minaj:
Minaj said in another Instagram story last week that she would never post on Twitter again, claiming they suspended her account after she posted her tweets about the vaccine. Twitter denies that they suspended her account.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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