Nicki Minaj and Husband Kenneth Petty’s Campaign to Silence His Sexual Assault Victim
“When you’re somebody’s wife, you’ve gotta be even more prayed up,” Nicki Minaj told her audience in a 2019 episode of her Apple Music show, Queen Radio. “Because you’ve gotta cover your husband in prayer.”
The rapper was responding to criticism she’d received for marrying convicted sex offender Kenneth “Zoo” Petty. Minaj went on to claim that Petty had been wrongfully accused of attempted rape at the age of 15, and that his victim had actually written a letter to the judge back then, in 1995, asking to recant her statement—only to reverse course after she found out she could go to jail for 90 days. “But white is right,” Minaj said.
But Petty’s victim, who has come forward using only her first name, “Jennifer,” is not white; her mother is white and her father is Black. Both she and Petty were 16 years old at the time of the assault, which she reported immediately. She says she never submitted a letter recanting—but alleges that associates of Minaj and Petty’s spent months last year harassing her to do so, going so far as to offer hundreds of thousands of dollars on their behalf. At one point, Jennifer says, she also spoke with Minaj herself. (Minaj and Petty did not respond to requests for comment.)