Top 10 Shadiest Nicki Minaj Moments
#10: The Taylor Swift Twitter Takedown
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One of the most unexpected sparring partners for Nicki was pop princess Taylor Swift. When Nicki questioned the nominations for the Video of the Year Award for the 2015 VMAs, she called out MTV for only rewarding videos of women who looked a certain way. Taylor took that as a dig against her since she was nominated for the award, and told Minaj that maybe one of the male nominees took her spot. Confused, Nicki let her know the tweet wasn’t aimed at her but invited her to speak on it. The whole “beef” was squashed pretty quickly and the two later performed together at the ceremony.
#9: Feuding with Azealia Banks
Azealia Banks is known for feuding with literally everyone, and her beefs can eclipse her musical talents. But Nicki started this one back in 2012 after Banks declined to tour with her. Minaj tweeted #ManTheseBitchesDelirious, arguably a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on Banks. Years later, Nicki’s savage bars in Gucci Mane’s “Make Love explicitly stated that you can’t be the Queen without selling albums, a clear shot at Azealia. There was more Twitter feuding but the two eventually made up. But not exactly a stable peace.
#8: Sliding into a Writer’s DMs
While most of Nicki’s callbacks are usually aimed at other famous people, this interaction with a fan was a little hard to swallow. After Toronto writer Wanna Thompson tweeted that she wanted a more emotional, honest and mature album from MInaj, since the rapper was getting older, she got an unexpected response from Nicki when she jumped in her DMs. The rapper listed many of her achievements and accolades, called Thompson out for talking about her age, and attacked her in extremely profane language. Yeesh! Nicki’s online fan army The Barbz also harassed the writer on social media.
#7: Going Hard at Farrah Abraham
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Nicki’s known for sharing her thoughts and connecting with fans on Twitter, so when she was watching the reality show, “Teen Mom,” she let the whole world know what she thought of Farrah Abraham. In a totally NSFW tweet she said Farrah was a “c***” to her mom, and re-tweeted a comment about Farrah’s daughter hitting her. Farrah responded to Nicki by saying she was too busy to be bothered by Minaj, but Nicki did not let up and made further claims about what a bad parent Farrah was. It was pretty ugly, yet, sadly, highly entertaining, with celeb onlookers like Chrissy Teigen saying it was the Twitter fight she hadn’t known she needed.
#6: Diss Track Spitting with Remy Ma
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While Nicki’s career was on the rise, Remy’s was put on pause with her jail sentence; but that didn’t stop the two MCs from exchanging jabs over the years. But it erupted into a full-on war after Remy was released in 2014. Despite both rappers claiming there was no beef at various points, their drama escalated when Remy started claiming the title of “Queen of Rap.” Nicki took shots at Remy in her verses of “Swalla” and “Make Love”; Remy came back with “Shether,” a killer blow to Nicki, who answered back with an Instagram video of Beyoncé calling Nicki the “Queen of Rap.” And on it went.
#5: Battling with Lil’ Kim
Can’t they ALL be the Queens of Rap? This particular feud has been a hot, and complex one for about a decade. Kim and Nicki have gone back and forth numerous times, with Nicki taking shots in diss tracks like “Tragedy” and in “Roman’s Revenge,” with Kim insinuating in 2012 that Nicki must be a “stupid hoe” since she has a song by that name. Nicki later called herself the “Queen of Rap” in the remix of Beyoncé’s “Flawless” and Kim quickly and angrily offered up her own competing verse tacked onto the track. They’ve ostensibly made peace as of 2018. but we have a feeling they’ll never fully resolve their issues.
#4: Slinging Shots at Iggy Azalea
Australian rapper Iggy Azalea might be something of a pop culture punchline now but in 2014 she was at the top of her game with her #1 hit “Fancy.” While accepting the award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the 2014 BET Awards, Nicki used her acceptance speech to send a subliminal hit to Iggy by stating that whenever you hear Nicki Minaj spit, you know she wrote it. Ghostwriting claims are taken pretty seriously in the rap game and even though she claimed threw no shade after her comments, it was pretty clear who she was targeting, since Iggy had just performed her song “No Mediocre” with T.I.
#3: All-Out Warring with Mariah Carey
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When both Nicki and Mariah became judges on “American Idol,” the two divas mixed like oil and water…so not at all. They seemed to have differing opinions on everything and a video of them fighting was leaked, and showed Nicki telling Keith Urban “. . . I'm not f*ckin' putting up with her f**kin' highness over there."
The rest of the season was chock-full of other jabs between them, and the escalating battle even dragged Barbara Walters into the workplace drama. After the season was over, Nicki got in one final jab when she tweeted about Mariah being replaced by JLo.
#2: Taking Down Travis Scott & Kylie Jenner & Stormi
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Nicki may say that she’d never talk about someone’s kid but that’s not exactly true: take this feud for instance. When her album, “Queen,” didn’t debut at number one on the Billboard Chart, she wasn’t afraid to call out Scott for bundling his album, “Astroworld,” released the same week, with concert tickets and merchandise to boost album sales. In a tweet, she specifically said that Kylie helped promote it by telling everyone that she and Stormi would be on tour with him. She later told Ellen she wanted to punch him Scott in his face.
Before we unveil our number one pick, here are a few honorable mentions:
Going After Her Ex, Safaree Samuels
Calling Justin Bieber's “Thing” Little
Shading Tiffany Haddish for Teasing Fifth Harmony
#1: Dissing Miley Cyrus at the VMAs
It was the diss heard around the world. While accepting an award at the 2015 VMA ceremony, Nicki took the opportunity to publicly address Miley Cyrus, the show’s host, after Miley criticized her and called her “not too kind” in an interview. Miley was weighing in Nicki’s aforementioned callout of Taylor Swift over the VMA nominations, but Nicki clearly didn’t appreciate her input. She shot down Miley with the now-infamous: ““And now back to this b-tch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press—Miley, what’s good?”” The malice in her voice and the delivery had everyone shook. She later went on to further accuse Miley of cultural hypocrisy.
