18 Times Nicki Minaj Was Not Afraid to Speak Her Mind

When MTV announced their nominees for the 2015 Video Music Awards, Nicki Minaj was left cold after her video for “Anaconda” failed to get a nod for Video of the Year. “If I was a different ’kind’ of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year as well,” she tweeted with a handful of smiling emojis. “Ellen did her own Anaconda video and did the #choreo lol. Remember her doing that kick? Even MTV did a post on the choreo @MTV remember?” She attributed her exclusion to MTV valuing certain women’s bodies over others. “If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year,” she wrote again with smiley emojis aplenty.

After Minaj posted those controversial VMAs tweets, Swift took to the social media outlet to add her two cents as she felt Minaj was specifically addressing her. “I’ve done nothing but love & support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot,” she wrote. Minaj quickly responded to Swift to let her know she was not referring to her. “Huh? U must not be reading my tweets. Didn’t say a word about u. I love u just as much. But u should speak on this.” The pair later made up and performed together at the VMAs.

When Minaj hit the stage to accept her award for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2015 MTV VMAs, she used her platform to address the beef between her and Miley Cyrus. Cyrus had spoken about Minaj’s critique of the VMAs for overlooking black female artists, saying she didn’t appreciate Minaj’s tone speaking on the issue. Cyrus told the New York Times, “If you do things with an open heart and you come at things with love, you would be heard and I would respect your statement. But I don’t respect your statement because of the anger that came with it.” Minaj obviously wasn’t going to let it slide and called Cyrus out onstage during the show. “And now, back to this b**** that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press,“ Minaj said before uttering the words that will live on in VMA history. "Miley, what’s good?” Cyrus attempted to justify her statements by saying her words were misconstrued by the reporter, but Minaj wasn’t having it. “Don’t play with me b****,” she warned.

As Minaj accepted her Coca-Cola Viewers Choice Award at the 2015 BET Awards, she talked about not giving up on her career, which many took as shade towards Lil’ Kim, who hasn’t been as present on the music scene as Minaj has as of late. “This is for everyone in this room. I want to tell you to please make it your business to follow your dreams because one day you will look around and your dream will be gone and you will be mad at somebody, but be mad at your g-d self.”

After Minaj’s ex-beau Safaree released “Love the Most,” a track about their breakup, Minaj took to Twitter to clap back – in this nicest way possible "God gave me a good heart. I always let ppl get over on me way too long. But that’s why I’m blessed. I’ll always b blessed. May God keep u. And just for the record, I’m in love with Meek. Lol and now I have a huge smile on my face,” she tweeted.

When Christina Milian posted an image of herself in a sweatshirt that read “pretty on fleek,” a lyric from Minaj’s “Feelin’ Myself” track, Minaj hopped onto Instagram to throw a little shade. “Fleek by Onika ???? – I saw Christina sellin tshirts that say Pretty On Fleek. I was waitin on my percentage at the door! *tilts head*” Milian jumped into Minaj’s comments to explain the offending attire. “Hey Boo. Been saying #OnFleek everything for a while now… but I’m not afraid to share. Most biz these days on shirts and etc. is based off pop culture quotes… But if you feel any kind of way i’m not a greedy biatch” Minaj later explained she was making a joke instead of attacking Milian, but if that was a joke, it was a shady one indeed.

On the track “Want Some More” off her Pinkprint album, Minaj was pretty clear about her intentions to throw shade at hatin’ dudes who can’t seem to cope with her success. “I’m in this bitch, I’m getting money/ One minute they hate me then they love me/ Ain’t got nothing for me, these dudes is funny/ That’s why I’m throwing shade like it’s sunny/ Who had Eminem on the first album?/ Who had Kanye saying “She a problem”?/ Who the f**k came in the game made her own column?/ Who made Lil Wayne give ‘em five million?/ Why the f**k I gotta say it, though?/ You n****s don’t know it yet?”

During her performance of the “***Flawless Remix” at the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival, the rapper’s music unexpectedly cut out. Minaj politely asked the crew “You guys, is there a problem in the back? ’Cause I can do it acapella,” she said before proceeding to nail her verse sans background music to a delighted crowd. Badass!

Minaj’s acceptance speech for winning Best Female Hip-Hop Artist was drenched with “no shade” aimed at rappers who don’t write their own lyrics. “What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it. No, no, no shade, no, no, no shade.” The media initially thought Minaj was taking a dig at Iggy Azalea, who was rumored to have a ghostwriter pen her lyrics, but Minaj later clarified she was not talking about Iggy.

When Nicki Minaj posted a picture of herself with a long ponytail, a few Instagram trolls came into her comments section to criticize the rapstress’ hairdo. Minaj swiftly clapped back by posting unflattering images of her haters with captions like “she dissin’ me” and “she said she doesn’t like my hair.” Ouch!

Nicki Minaj’s booty baring cover for her “Anaconda” single is an image that launched a thousand memes, and also plenty of criticism. Minaj took the haters who complained about the sexy shot to task, posting images of skinny Sports Illustrated swimsuit models who showed off their assets without sparking the vitriol Minaj did, to point out the double standard. “ACCEPTABLE” she captioned a few images on Instagram, before reposting her Anaconda cover with “UNACCETPABLE.”

After her ex Safaree Samuels claimed he wrote some of the lyrics on Minaj’s tracks, the rapstress addressed the claims outright onstage. “A b***h ass n****a can’t write my raps,” she said. “You don’t even know how to pronounce these mother*****n’ words in my mother*****n’ raps, b***h.”

When T magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriadis asked Minaj if she “thrives” off the squabbles between her male labelmates, the rapper let Grigoriadis have it in the most epic way. “What do the four men you just named have to do with me thriving off drama? Why would you even say that? That’s so peculiar. Four grown-ass men are having issues between themselves, and you’re asking me do I thrive off drama?’’ she said. “To put down a woman for something that men do, as if they’re children and I’m responsible, has nothing to do with you asking stupid questions, because you know that’s not just a stupid question. That’s a premeditated thing you just did… I don’t care to speak to you anymore.”

In that same interview with T magazine, Minaj talked about why she thought Miley was out of line tone-policing her comments on the VMA nominations. “The fact that you feel upset about me speaking on something that affects black women makes me feel like you have some big balls. You’re in videos with black men, and you’re bringing out black women on your stages, but you don’t want to know how black women feel about something that’s so important? Come on, you can’t want the good without the bad. If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle, bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that.’’

For some reason, Joe Budden thought it appropriate to air out his personal feelings about Meek Mill and Nicki Minaj’s relationship on an episode of I’ll Name This Podcast Later. Budden lamented Meek expressing love for his fiancée: “Meek’s music is too hard for me to look at him with this f*****g sappy f**k s**t. Be the hardcore guy that I’m sure [Nicki] was attracted to at some point. It’s nasty.” The rapping couple both clapped back at Budden, with Minaj taking to Twitter to shut down the hating emcee. “Jealousy jealousy that’s how u feel?” she tweeted. “Why would you be bothered by another man showing love to his girl? Let’s celebrate black love,” Minaj continued. “All the best w/ur podcast. All jokes aside.” Budden later said he made his original statement in jest.

When a fan falsely told Cher that Nicki Minaj had dissed her on her Pink Friday track, “Did It On ‘Em,” Cher addressed the alleged snub on Twitter. “I’ve seen lots of people come & go! No bigge!” she said. When she realized that the line in question, “If you could turn back time, Cher/ You used the be here but now you gone Nair,” actually wasn’t a diss to her, she backtracked for her mistake, but Nicki still clapped back with a simple tweet reading “#stopit5,” telling the legendary diva that maybe she should leave this one alone.

These days, companies are always looking to find a way to connect with the millennial crowd on social media, but Minaj wasn’t feeling IHOP’s attempts at being down with the cool kids. When the pancake Mecca tweeted “I ain’t got no type. Pancakes are the only thing that I like,” a play on the Rae Sremmurd tune, Minaj was quick to put the eatery in its place. “Sit dat ass down pls sir/ma'am,” she tweeted.

Minaj made it clear that she wasn’t too pleased with her cover for ESPN magazine’s music issue, which she shared with Kobe Bryant. The rapstress expressed her disappointment on Instagram. “when retouching goes wrong,” she wrote. "I love my personal unretouched photos where my forehead doesn’t mysteriously grow in length.“ ESPN denied they had altered the size of Minaj’s forehead.