Right now, Nicki Minaj is deeply immersed in a feud with the management of Travis Scott. It’s the sort of feud that doesn’t make much sense if you’re not up to date on the behind-the-scenes machinations of music promotion, touring, and business. most people are just in it for the songs. That may be why the feud has been redirected towards Kylie Jenner by the public, a figurehead who is much more familiar.
It all started when Minaj accused Scott’s co-manager Irving Azoff of sabotaging her ticket sales—he once worked for Ticketmaster, and she claimed on her new radio show, Beats 1, that he’s been using his influence to damage her reputation, Variety reports.
“The c—sucker of the day is Irving Azoff,” she said. “And I’m gonna tell you why. Allegedly, he tried to put out a smear campaign against my tour, and contacted people in the media to spread negative things about my tour.”
Not long after, some of Minaj’s tour dates in the U.S. with Future seemed to be cancelled, though she argued on Instagram that the issue was a lack of time to properly rehearse.
Minaj is also pissed at Scott because her album debuted number 2 behind his, and according to Buzzfeed, she believes it’s because he boosted sales by bundling the album with merchandise. She also said he boosted sales of merch via his girlfriend and the mother of his child, Kylie Jenner. Jenner has a big reach!
Naturally, people took this to mean that Minaj has a problem with Jenner, too. It got a lot worse at the Video Music Awards, first because Jenner and Scott allegedly asked to have their seats switched from the area Minaj was seated in. Then a clip went viral that seems to show Jenner avoiding Minaj on the red carpet. Some have even suggested Jenner stepped out to take attention away from Minaj entirely.
Last night at the #Vmas when Nicki Minaj got to the red carpet, Kylie Jenner popped out of nowhere and started taking pics with everyone so that Nicki would go unnoticed pic.twitter.com/dBEZSHoFSV
— Sacabis ✨ (@kenkenzvega) August 21, 2018
Minaj chose to respond on her radio show again, clarifying that her issue is not with Jenner.
“I f*cking love Kylie, and that’s not gonna change. I love Kylie and so do my fans,” she said.
“She has been put in probably a little awkward situation but this is not real life. This is entertainment.
“Now it’s obvious she gotta ride with her man, why the f*ck wouldn’t she? But we’re not gonna make this something that it’s not because she’s a dope girl, she’s done absolutely nothing wrong but support her people.
“We’re not going to start any dumbass catfights for your f*cking entertainment. We’re not.”
She added, “This is strictly between music, within music. She’s not a musician. She has nothing to do with this, she supported her man as she should.”
Good for Minaj. Though it’s less interesting to debate record sale numbers than red carpet drama, it’s about time we stop pitting women against each other for our entertainment.