Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, faced backlash after fans accused him of using a gay slur during an Instagram Live session on Friday.
The drama unfolded as the Grammy-winning rapper, 41, addressed her followers with a message about protecting their happiness, with her 46-year-old husband sitting behind her.
‘Don’t you let anybody or anything steal your motherf joy,’ she remarked.
His response, which many interpreted as him saying, ‘That’s right, especially little f** and fboys,’ sparked a wave of criticism on social media.
One outraged follower posted, ‘Kenneth petty says the F slur while on live with Nicki Minaj and she does nothing,’ as another shared, ‘Just insulted her entire male fanbase.’
Another referenced Petty’s s3x offender status, commenting, ‘Are we shocked? He’s also a rapist. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Filth.’
However, many social media users argued that Petty actually said ‘haters’ and not a gay slur.
The controversy comes almost 3 months after Petty was granted permission to travel internationally to support his wife on her Pink Friday World Tour while on probation for failing to register as a sex offender.
He had told the court in documents reviewed by TMZ that it’s essential he be allowed to accompany the artist in Europe to watch their three-year-old son.
The slate of dates began in Montreal and spanned through locales such as London, Amsterdam and Paris, and wrapped July 14 in Belgium – the same date Petty told the court he could be in the U.S. by.
The probation officer overseeing Petty’s case – stemming initially from his first-degree attempted rape conviction in April 1995 – ‘hasn’t raised any objections to his travel request,’ the outlet reported, citing court docs.
Petty’s legal issues made headlines last September, after he received a 120-day house arrest sentence in connection with a probation violation after he posted social media clips with aggressive messages made toward Migos rapper Offset.
A court order filed in the case in California’s Central District stated that Petty on September 16, 2023 ‘was recorded on video making threatening remarks to a specific individual while in the company of someone with a criminal record,’ according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Minaj, whose full name is Onika Tanya Maraj, has been wed to Petty since October of 2019.
In a December 2023 Vogue profile, the Super Bass artist explained the dynamics of her relationship with Petty, who she’s known since high school.
‘Because I’ve known my husband for so long, there’s an ease we have with each other,’ Minaj said of Petty. ‘We make each other laugh. We’re silly. And we’re always reminiscing about some old story.
‘If it was a guy that I met as Nicki Minaj, I think I’d feel like they liked me because I’m Nicki Minaj, and what if I don’t look like Nicki Minaj every day? And that, combined with pregnancy, would probably have made me crazy.’
In the interview, she said of staring a family with Petty, ‘I think that deep down inside, I believed that once I had a family, I would just lose the desire to make music.
‘I would always tell people, “Watch, when I have a child I’m going to cook every meal for him and bake cookies every day.” Maybe subconsciously I hoped my focus would just be on being a mother, and I looked forward to that idea. It felt like a relief. But what happens is that you find out you have to work.’
Minaj said she and Petty ventured through the infant years of their son – who they have not publicly named – with little help from others, which led to things getting ‘testy between’ them.
‘Because of our history, I think we knew we’d get past it,’ Minaj said. ‘But there’s no such thing as confidence in parenthood.
‘I kind of wish that someone had told me – although I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to understand it – that there’s a level of anxiety, and you think it’s going to go away, but in fact it gets scarier. So often you think: I don’t know how to do this!’
Minaj took to Instagram Tuesday evening with a series of images of herself, Petty and their son, captioning the image, ‘Go PAPA!!!!! M
