The A-list rapper/pop star put her D-list rapper ‘boyfriend’ in check—and on ‘Ellen’ no less!
Nicki Minaj shocked fans and (most likely) her boyfriend on Ellen this week, when she told the talk show host,
“I don’t even want to say I’m in a relationship anymore.”
“I don’t even want to say I’m in a relationship anymore.”
Minaj
explained, “I used to say I wasn’t in a relationship even though I was
in a 12-year relationship and now, I feel like going back to that and
saying I’m single… For instance, Valentine’s Day passed and I didn’t put
up my Valentine’s Day gift on Instagram. People said, ‘They’re not
together.’ We were getting anonymous messages saying, ‘She wasn’t with
him. She was crying all day.’ They put up all these things. Meanwhile,
we were really in bed all day on Valentine’s Day.”
What
did this little social media maneuver illuminate for Minaj? “That made
me realize that no matter how great your life is, you can’t impress
people,” she continued. “You just have to do you and make yourself happy
and forget about trying to get everyone’s approval. It’s better to just
keep those things sacred. So now, I don’t really care to say I’m in a
relationship or I’m engaged or whatever. There’s a boy that likes me.
That’s all.” In one fell swoop, Minaj managed to on-air dump her
boyfriend of more than a year, while simultaneously reducing Meek Mill, a
man who’s been to prison two times, to a little boy with an adorable
crush.
Let’s go back in time—as I’m sure Meek wishes he could—to 2014.
Meek
and Minaj had been digging each other’s music, but it took Meek getting
booked for a real relationship to start. The unapologetically vague
Minaj explained to GQ
that, “when he went to jail I was left in a house my myself.” The two
started kicking it on the phone, forming a “strong mental connection”
that blossomed into a full-fledged affair. Minaj has famously said that
she’s only been in three relationships in her entire life—and was with
her ex, Safaree Samuels, for over 12 years. So when Meek and Minaj took
it public, fans were immediately thrown by the quick turnaround. But
trust, Nicki set them straight: “We were friends for a very long time
and he was someone that I was able to really confide in. Nothing that we
do is for TV. My decision to be public about my relationship came
before I even met Meek. I was in another relationship and I said after I
drop my third album that I don’t care anymore what people think. I’m
going to be vocal about who I’m with. It just so happens that I’m with a
new guy.”
So what
caused Minaj to all of a sudden drop Meek—at least publicly—like a white
girl at the “Formation” back-up dancers’ audition? For one, it hasn’t
been all double-dates with Jay and Bey and beautiful sunset nights spent
sipping Myx Moscato and listening to acoustic versions of “Only.” Meek
and Nicki have hit their fair share of rough patches.
Back in May, rumors spread that the duo was on the rocks after Minaj
stopped wearing the diamond-on-diamond ring Meek bought her, and started posting
a series of Instagrams of the “strong independent woman who don’t need
no man” variety. These posts included a photograph of Minaj that quoted
lyrics from another bomb lady, Beyoncé—“Thank God ya blew it!!! Thank
God I dodged the bullet!!!!” Got to love when a grown ass lady just
needs to act out her inner dumped high schooler.
And then, of course, there was the Drake feud.
In July 2015, Meek Mill committed to one of the odder plays in recent
hip-hop history, tweeting a long rant claiming that Drake doesn’t write
his own raps. Drake, who definitely doesn’t have feelings for Nicki Minaj and definitely
wasn’t sporting an awkward boner after that “Anaconda” lap dance, took
the shade in stride and focused on his career and upcoming album. Just
kidding! He went off. Drake responded with two quick diss tracks, an
unanswered back-to-back whupping that served to cement his place as the
number one rapper in the game. He also gave us the gift of the line, “Is
that a world tour, or your girl’s tour?”: a new universal shorthand for
scrubs and the hard-working ladies who love them. Meek’s diss track was
already moldy by the time he got around to dropping it, and was met
with a general air of indifference and a host of dismissive memes.
This
all adds up to a lot of dead weight for a woman who doesn’t usually let
anyone or anything (Samuels, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, clothes) drag
her down. As Minaj has testified before,
“I can’t stop working, because it’s bigger than work to me. It’s having
a purpose outside any man.” One doesn’t have to look any further than
her bravado verses on “Anaconda” to see that Minaj is winning the game
that male artists have been playing for decades: using men as status
symbols and sex objects, and dumping them the second they get in her
way. It’s nice to be reminded that Minaj isn’t here to play games—she’s
here to check white privilege, redefine BBW on a daily basis, and make great music. And she’s not going to skip a beat dumping a loser (on Ellen,
no less!) the second she feels like dusting off that single status.
While it’s hard to say what this news means for Meek and Minaj IRL, if
there’s one thing that we do know, it’s that somewhere—maybe in the
Hooters on Peachtree—Drake is buying everyone a round.
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