A week after Nicki Minaj doxed two journalists and lashed out at people criticizing her for her controversial views on COVID-19 vaccines, a woman who says she was raped by Minaj’s husband in 1994 has detailed efforts by the rapper and her husband to pressure her to recant her allegations.
Jennifer Hough detailed the alleged witness intimidation in a TV interview for “The Real,” the Daily Beast reported Wednesday. Before introducing her, the hosts told their audience, “We believe that all women’s voices deserve to be heard.”
Hough also has filed a lawsuit against Minaj and Kenneth Petty, alleging that associates of the couple began putting pressure on her and family last March, after Petty was arrested in Beverly Hills for failing to register as a sex offender in the sexual assault case, the Daily Beast reported.
Petty was mandated to register as a sex offender in both California and New York after pleading guilty in 1995 to attempted first-degree rape in Queens, New York. Both Hough and Petty were 16 when she says she was sexually assaulted at knifepoint in Petty’s home. Hough said the pressure to recant has come from associates of Minaj and Petty and has included veiled threats and attempts to pay her for her silence, according to the Daily Beast.
“What they did to me and my family wasn’t OK,” Hough said of Minaj and Petty during “The Real” Interview, according to the Daily Beast. “It wasn’t right and it doesn’t matter how much money you have. It doesn’t matter what your status is. You can’t intimidate people to make things better for you.”
Representatives for Petty and Minaj did not respond to requests for comments from the Daily Beast or “The Real.”
Earlier this month, Petty pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender and faces up to 10 years in prison. Four days after Petty’s plea, Minaj unleashed an uproar and international backlash from top public health officials after she said she wasn’t going to the Met Gala because attendees need to be immunized.
Minaj said she would only get the jab after she had “done enough research,” then explained her vaccine hesitancy by sharing a bizarre second-hand tale from a cousin in her native Trinidad and Tobago. She said the cousin’s friend has suffered “swollen” testicles and infertility as a result of getting the coronavirus vaccine — a claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials said was unverified and never known to happen.
Two reporters who tried to verify Minaj’s claims by tracking down her cousin in Trinidad, wound up in the rapper’s crosshairs late last week. Minaj took to her Instagram Story to allege that one of the reporters, Sharlene Rampersad, a Trinidad-based reporter for The Guardian, had threatened her family.
Minaj shared screen shots that allegedly showed an online conversation between Rampersad and a family member, but the conversation only showed that Rampersad had promised to not reveal details about where her family lived, unlike, possibly, other reporters.
Nonetheless, Minaj hit back by writing: “Threatening my family in Trinidad won’t bode well for you.” She then shared Rampersad’s phone number and screenshots of her photo. Minaj also hopped on the reporter’s Twitter account to say: “SPEAK UP B4 I BEGIN. I KNOW YOU SEE THIS!!!!!!”
Minaj additionally used her Story to share an image of the business card of another reporter from the Daily Mail.
Both Instagram and Twitter removed Minaj’s threatening posts, and The Guardian condemned her attempts to intimidate one of its reporters by activating her fans, known as “barbz,” to harass the reporter online, according to the Trinidad Guardian.
The rapper, always active, outspoken and engaging with her fans on social media, has since been silent on Twitter and Instagram. Her lasts posts on Instagram story were those sharing the reporters’ contact information.
It’s possible that Minaj may have realized she crossed a line by aggressively targeting the reporters and posting their phone numbers. It’s also possible, Jezebel writer Megan Reynolds said, that Minaj was using the international furor over her vaccine opinions to distract attention away from her husband’s legal problems.
Reynolds also said Minaj is known for getting aggressive and getting her allies, including her millions-strong army social media fans, to launch personal attacks on journalists or anyone else who criticizes her, Reynolds said.
It is “all a part of what Minaj does when she feels like her supremacy is under attack,” Reynolds wrote.
