Nicki Minaj performs onstage during her Pink Friday 2 World Tour - New York at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 7, 2024, in New York City. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Live Nation
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Nicki Minaj has some regrets about lyrics from the earlier stages of her career. Minaj joined the evangelical Bryce Crawford Podcast on Monday (June 15), where she spoke about not understanding the impact her words would have on the youth.
“I didn’t realize that there are young people listening to it and how it could probably make them make certain decisions that wasn’t, you know, really thought out. Now, if I could do it all over again, I would have changed a lot of things that I said,” Minaj explained without pointing to specific bars and tracks.
She continued: “I just don’t like the idea of thinking that these people will now grow up wanting to change themselves as opposed to loving themselves. That’s what I think is very demonic about the industry as a whole — it makes people feel that they’re never enough.”
The Queens rapper also reflected on the early days of running around with Young Money in the late 2000s and how much fun she was having.
Minaj recalled the camaraderie of the crew led by Lil Wayne and how everyone wanted to see each other win, but it was a rude awakening when she realized that the same belief didn’t extend across the industry.
“We had so much fun rooting for each other and I thought that’s how it would always be,” she remembered. “It was a beautiful experience in the beginning.”
Minaj went on: “I started realizing people are really vindictive in this industry. I started realizing if you don’t get money with one person or a specific person, they don’t want you to get money at all. That’s when I started realizing like, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I sign up for?'”
On the music side, the 43-year-old hasn’t released a single in 2026, and her last album arrived with Pink Friday 2 in 2023, which topped the Billboard 200.
While the “Super Bass” rapper has long been grounded in her faith, she’s recently been more outspoken about her MAGA pivot and support of Donald Trump.
Minaj, who referred to herself as the president’s “No. 1 fan,” wished Trump a happy 80th birthday with a post to X featuring several AI-generated photos with the president, with several featuring fake imagesof Tesla CEO Elon Musk and actress Sydney Sweeney.
Watch Nicki Minaj’s full interview below.
