Rapper Nicki Minaj said she connected to MAGA after she was alienated by key Democratic figures and dragged online over nonconventional beliefs compared with those of her Hollywood counterparts.
The award-winning artist, who became an outspoken advocate for President Trump last year, told Time magazine that she leaned toward his politics for a while but “didn’t dare act like that publicly.”
“It’s been ingrained in everyone’s brain in the music business that we are supposed to be a Democratic family,” she said. “I just knew they would not like me supporting Trump.”
Multiple scenarios involving high-profile Democrats pushed her toward the Republican Party. One of the earliest involved swatting calls to her Los Angeles mansion between 2022 and 2023. She sought help from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who she said “completely ignored me, with all the money I spent in taxes.”
Fast forward to April of last year. Another swatting attack prompted Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Republican, to offer to connect Ms. Minaj with law enforcement and private security. This led the rapper to consider publicizing her MAGA support: “That’s what made me say that I don’t care to keep this a secret anymore.”
“I was shocked,” Ms. Minaj said regarding Ms. Luna’s help. “I’d never seen anyone in politics treat me that way.”
Mr. Newsom is not the only Democratic leader who sparked her frustration. She became disappointed with former President Barack Obama while he was campaigning in 2024 for then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He contended that some men were “not feeling the idea of having a woman as president” and were making “all kinds of reasons and excuses” to avoid supporting her.
Ms. Minaj found it condescending. “I just saw so many videos of Black men saying that they didn’t like the way they felt about that speech that Obama gave,” she said. “They felt like they weren’t being listened to.”
Her discontent with the Democratic Party really began years prior, stemming from her online skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. She alleged that the vaccines could cause “swollen testicles,” prompting outrage from followers.
An unlikely ally, conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, defended her. “Democrats’ treatment of Nicki Minaj should be all the proof you need that they don’t care about Black people, especially those they can’t control,” he said on social media. “They just use them every four years for their votes. But people are waking up.”
As the Queen of Rap, her fan base includes millions of young Black women, a demographic assumed to be disillusioned by the GOP. But Ms. Minaj grew “frustrated by the expectation that Black entertainers would reflexively vote Democratic,” according to Time.
Her first appearance with the Trump administration was at a November United Nations event about violence against Christians in Nigeria after she thanked the president for his attention to the matter on social media.
Criticism about Ms. Minaj’s attendance at the event only emboldened her.
“If they would have left me alone, maybe I would not have done so much,” she said.
Now she has become a well-publicized endorser of the president, dubbing herself his No. 1 ally and advocating for his policies.
When it comes to future involvement in the MAGA movement, such as helping the president with the upcoming midterm elections, “I’ll do whatever it is,” she said.
