Nicki Minaj Documentary Shows The Rapper Speaking From Experience As A Victim Of Domestic Abuse

Nicki Minaj took to Instagram to share a pair of video clips that revealed the coming of a new project late Tuesday, October 2. But to the shock of fans who found themselves emotionally triggered after pressing play, the content on display provided something far different from the Queen album songs many might have expected to see new visuals of. Instead, those who happened to stop through got to see one of the world’s most popular artists speak vulnerably about surviving an abusive relationship.

“I remember when my mother would let my father be violent with her. And she always brings up this story, as a little girl I would stand in front of my mother and go like this,” Nicki says in the opening moments of a snippet she’d release under a caption announcing a forthcoming Queen documentary. After spreading her arms out to gesture how she would try to block her father from attacking, the 35-year-old native of Queens, New York, expounded on how the experience led her to embody the tough presence she is known for having today.

“Maybe some people would describe me as abrasive or b****y or whatever because I vowed from that age no man would ever abuse me, call me out my name, treat me like that. And all of a sudden, that was my life,” Billboard and a variety of other publications have since quoted Nicki as going on to say.

In the second clip that she’d proceed to post, Nicki full-on opens up about finding herself re-living her mother’s experience in the shadows of fame. The account lends detail to what it was like to struggle under the weight of the pressure that came with trying to deliver more music while dealing with the impact a demoralizing relationship had on her confidence.

“I let one human being make me so low that, like, I didn’t even remember who I was,” said Nicki. “I was scared to get in the studio. Like, I didn’t believe in myself.”

While Nicki never does name who her abusive lover was in the teaser, she provides enough indication to confirm that it was somebody she was with after she had already kicked off her career as a musician. Since her emergence onto the scene with the charting of her first hit single, “Your Love,” in 2009 and the Pink Friday album’s release the following year, Nicki has been linked to Safaree Samuels, Meek Mill, and Nas. Of the three, her 12-year relationship wound up being the nastiest to play out in public, with the two of them lobbing occasional shots at one another via social media.

Tuesday’s Queen documentary previews may have caught some off guard, but in hindsight, she’s provided some indication of the trauma she’s carried in the not-so-distant past. In fact, the signs that she might have let fans in on such history were present as recently as May, when Nicki published a string of tweets that hinted at a past with abusive men.

“Having men treat you like dog s**t because they’re famous or have money is the new era we live in,” she’d tell her followers on Twitter at the time. In a message she’d later post, Nick would add that “being emotionally, mentally, or physically abused just to crack a fake smile on the gram & show off a ring is not happiness.”

Thus, the writing has been on the wall about Nicki’s painful journey for some time. The public has just never heard her actually speak the words she is finally bringing herself to say.

#Queen, know your worth. I’ve been proposed to 3 times; asked by 4 boyfriends to have their child. Being emotionally, mentally, or physically abused just to crack a fake smile on the gram & show off a ring is not happiness. Being cheated on, humiliated, belittled… for the gram?

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) May 26, 2018