How Nicki Minaj went from Queen of Rap to controversial Trump cheerleader

The rapper’s ascent to the summit of MAGA land came to a head Wednesday at a U.S. Treasury event, where Minaj — wearing a white fur coat and her signature long acrylic nails — stood on stage with Trump, squeezed his hand and declared: “I am probably the president’s number one fan, and that’s not going to change.”

The public proclamation marked the end of any speculation by Barbz (the name of Minaj’s ruthlessly devoted fans) over her political stance. Some had previously refused to believe that Minaj, an undocumented immigrant who spent years cultivating a progressive fanbase within queer communities and people of color, would rally behind a president who has threatened LGBTQ+ rights and declared a war on immigrants.

So how did we get here? Read ahead for the chronicle of Minaj’s come-up and downfall.

Nicki Minaj’s rap takeover

Minaj’s domination of the hip-hop world happened quickly. After years of murmurings about the Trinidad-born rapper’s freestyles in the underground mixtape game, she was launched into global superstardom with her 2010 debut album Pink Friday. The record, which topped the Billboard 200, featured superstars like Eminem, Rihanna and Kanye West, and went on to be certified triple-platinum. Her singles “Moment 4 Life,” “Your Love,” “Fly,” “Check It Out” and “Super Bass” all became hits that entered the Top 40 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 at the time.

The rapper solidified her status as a pop culture icon by showing off her outrageous fashion style and sense of humor at public events. She sang at the 2011 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and performed with Prince at the 2011 Versace collection launch for H&M. Minaj also opened for Britney Spears’s tour that year, and appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. She took the stage with Madonna at the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show in 2012 and became the first female rapper to perform at the Grammy Awards that year.

She then released Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded in April 2012, which featured pop hits “Starships” and “Beez in the Trap,” and embarked on her first headlining world tour. Her third album, The Pinkprint, dropped in 2014, spawning hit singles “Anaconda” and “Only,” which featured Drake, Lil Wayne and Chris Brown.

By 2015, Minaj’s music was a permanent fixture on most popular radio stations. In a genre that was previously dominated by men, she broke through the landscape with witty wordplay and by taking on different personas in her songs. Time named Minaj one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016.

However, Minaj’s momentum began to slow as her once standalone takeover ushered in a new age of female rap — stars like Cardi B, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, and Ice Spice.

The 12-time-Grammy-nominated artist still had her wins, but they became more sparse. Minaj achieved her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles with Doja Cat’s “Say So” and 6ix9ine’s “Trollz” in 2020. She scored her first solo U.S. number-one single with “Super Freaky Girl,” from her most recent album, Pink Friday 2 (2023). The album cemented her as the female rapper with the most number-one albums in history and propelled her on the highest-grossing concert tour ever by a woman in hip-hop.

Despite its success, the Pink Friday 2 world tour unfolded alongside a looming issue: Minaj’s ongoing feud with Megan Thee Stallion.

Nicki Minaj vs. Megan Thee Stallion

Minaj’s career has been marked by multiple feuds with other celebrities. Miley Cyrus, Cardi B and Kanye West are just a few of the stars she has publicly fought with, but none have been as vicious as her rivalry with fellow rhymer Megan Thee Stallion.

Going back as far as 2021, Minaj and Megan have taken swipes at each other in lyrics of their songs, though Megan has said she doesn’t know what started the bitterness. However, Megan decidedly crossed a line with her hit 2024 single, “Hiss.”

Although Megan didn’t mention Minaj by name, the track’s lyrics were widely interpreted to include a dig at Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, who is a registered sex offender after being convicted of attempted rape for a 1994 assault. Minaj lashed out at Megan in response to the song’s release and sparked backlash by making light of emotional topics like the 2019 death of Megan’s mom and the controversial shooting by fellow rapper Tory Lanez that left Megan with a foot wound.

While fans and rap peers largely stood by Megan’s side in the face-off, Minaj became further isolated from her “Queen of Rap” title as other artists were praised for taking up her torch in the genre. Doechii, for example, became only the third woman ever to win Best Rap Album at the 2025 Grammys for Alligator Bites Never Heal and was shortly thereafter named Billboard’s 2025 Woman of the Year.

Nicki Minaj’s rise to MAGA darling

During Trump’s first presidential term, Minaj had spoken out against his mass deportation efforts of immigrants as a Trinidad-born woman who moved to New York City with her family when she was five years old. She wrote on Facebook in 2018: “I came to this country as an illegal immigrant @ 5 years old. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5. This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now?”

By the fall of 2025, Minaj had begun to use her social media platforms to praise Trump, which some Barbz initially took as her trolling. The rapper is known for her outspoken opinions, but had never publicly endorsed a political candidate (if you don’t count her rap lyric on “Mercy” that jokingly referenced her voting for Mitt Romney).

In November, Minaj thanked Trump for his threats against the Nigerian government over the “killing of Christians,” and later joined his administration at a panel to speak about the issue.

The next month, she raised eyebrows by joining Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, at a Turning Point USA event, where the rapper said she was tired of being “pushed around” and vowed to speak her mind about her support for Trump.

“This administration is full of people with heart and soul, and they make me proud of them. Our vice president, he makes me ... well, I love both of them,” Minaj said. “Both of them have a very uncanny ability to be someone that you relate to.”

Many of Minaj’s fans shared their devastated responses on social media to the ostracized star’s embrace of the Trump administration and its conservative values. Some wondered if the move was a cash grab as others called for boycotts of the rapper’s music and shared pictures of their merchandise in the trash.

Others theorized that Minaj, who once sang, “Island girl, Donald Trump want me go home,” in reference to Trump’s anti-immigration policies, was aligning herself with the controversial president in order to fast-track a path to legal residency in the U.S. That theory was pushed further Wednesday, when Minaj appeared to show off her new million-dollar Trump Gold Card, which the president promised would get owners citizenship “in record time.”

Welp… pic.twitter.com/c5v8ztVVLR

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) January 28, 2026

In response to the outcry from her fans, Minaj deleted her Instagram account. When Erika Kirk thanked her for supporting Trump despite backlash from the entertainment industry, Minaj said she “didn’t notice” the criticism, adding, “We don’t even think about them.”

At the U.S. Treasury event Wednesday, Minaj slammed people who are against Trump for “bullying him” and orchestrating “smear campaigns.”

“The hate or what people have to say, it does not affect me at all. It actually motivates me to support him more,” she said. “He has a lot of force behind him, and God is protecting him. Amen.”

Trump, for his part, said about the rapper: “She’s so good. She’s been MAGA, what can I say? She’s been with us all the way.”