Nicki Minaj in the December issue of ‘Vogue’.Photo:Norman Jean Roy/Vogue
Norman Jean Roy/Vogue
Nicki Minajis opening up about her experience with addiction.
The Queen of Rap, 40, speaks candidly about her past Percocet use inVogue’s new December cover story, revealing that she was prescribed the opioid to treat painful menstrual cramps years ago.
“No one told me that this was a narcotic and this was addictive,” Minaj, who began taking the drug even when she wasn’t in pain, told the fashion magazine. “Luckily I was able to ground myself. But — once an addict, always an addict. I feel like if you’ve ever experienced addiction to anything, which I have, you always have to think twice and three times about the choices that you make.”
Nicki Minaj and her son in ‘Vogue’.Norman Jean Roy/Vogue
The Grammy winner — who will release her new albumPink Friday 2on Dec. 8 — also reflected on other artists who struggled with substance abuse while in the spotlight.
“Look at some of our biggest celebrities. They eventually either get laughed out of wanting to go outside anymore, likeMichael Jackson, or criticized, likeWhitney Houston, or they fight silent battles, likePrince,” she said. “These are some of the greatest of all time. And one day they decided, ‘You know what? I’d rather self-medicate and be in my own world.’”
In theVoguestory — for which she posed with her and husband Kenneth Petty’s3-year-old son— the “Anaconda” rapper also looked back on how her father Robert Maraj’s addiction to crack cocaine during her childhood has informed her perspective on substance abuse. “I feel like I will always consider myself to be just like my father,” she said.
Nicki Minaj on the December 2023 cover of ‘Vogue’.Norman Jean Roy/Vogue
“I think about watching my father go back and forth, and I just wish that at the time I understood that he wasn’t doing it because he wanted to," Minaj (whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty) added. “Now I realize, those people weren’t making those choices because they wanted to hurt their family. Addiction took over their bodies and their lives. They were victims too.”
The performer’s father died in ahit-and-run car crashat age 64 in February 2021.
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In a 2012 interview withThe Guardian, the “Last Time I Saw You” artist opened up about her ups and downs with her father.
“He went to rehab and cleaned himself up,” she said at the time. “Eventually [my parents] started going to church a lot, and he got saved and started changing his life. He’s away from drugs now. He doesn’t instill fear in people anymore.”
Minaj will soon release her fifth studio album and recently shared how “proud” of the record she is in an Instagram Live.
“I am so filled with emotion about it because, as y’all know, it’s been a long time coming,” the “Super Freaky Girl” rapper said.
source: people.com
