Nicki Minaj – Ah, Nicki Minaj. To think that once upon a time, we didn’t even know she existed. Then she burst onto the scene in such a way that could not be ignored… and would never be ignored again. Whether you love her or hate her, it’s plain to see that Nicki is pretty good at getting her name trending on social media.
It doesn’t hurt that she has an army of fans around the world all too happy to help spread the hashtags. But that isn’t the only reason that people are talking about her. Unlike many young stars, she actually does things to warrant the attention.
As anyone who followers her will attest, she isn’t shy about attention. She doesn’t mind hearing your thoughts and comments about her appearance. She definitely doesn’t mind letting you take a good look at her body. She won’t stop wearing her heart on her sleeve and showing off about her man. And she is never shy about speaking her mind either.
Whether through causing controversy or by invoking admiration, Nicki has barely spent a moment out of the spotlight since we first heard her music. On more than a few occasions, that spotlight has grown to the point where we could talk about nothing else on the Internet.
Here are 12 examples of times when Nicki Minaj went ahead and broke the Internet. Again. And again. And again – and we’re pretty sure that she will be doing it again in the near future too.
13. That DJ Khaled Proposal
So, this was a little bit of madness that happened back in 2013. In July of that year, DJ Khaledapparently decided that he wanted to get married to none other than Nicki Minaj. Not only did he go ahead and pop the question on MTV, but he also had a ring worth around $375,000 to back up his intentions.
She then described him as being nothing more than a brother to her. It seemed like he was desperately friend zoned. That was until he then made a statement that it wasn’t real in the first place. He said, “I was just having fun with it and just showing love.
Bring some excitement for my fans and connect with the record. I just wanted to tap into the emotion of the record and really spread a message. I was joking with it and having fun. We be so busy making these big hits and I wanted to come with a dope plan to present the next smash single besides just giving it out.” What really happened? Who knows.
12. The Other Woman
When you see a singer moving into the world of acting, there tends to be a bit of disbelief. After all, being on stage and being able to rap fast don’t add up to anything in Hollywood. You still must have the right skills to make it work on the screen.
Unfortunately, one too many talentless stars have been allowed to take a role anyway. So, when Nicki was cast in The Other Woman, plenty of eyebrows were raised, but not in a good way. However, she managed to hold her own, which was surprising enough in its own way. When going up against actresses like Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton, she didn’t come off as talentless at all.
It just goes to show that some people have hidden talents under the surface. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you have a face and body like Nicki’s to go along with it, too.
11. Posing in Her Underwear
What kind of content do you need to post on Instagram in order to get over 1 million likes? How about a selfie in underwear that doesn’t quite fit? That will pretty much do it. Here, Nicki Minaj took to the social network to post an image in a white shirt and tight white trunks, seemingly taken in a hotel room or bedroom mirror. The caption she posted read, “Babe thanks but I think I need a bigger size.”
The combination of the very tight fit and the almost see-through white fabric left very little to the imagination. To date, it also has over 62,000 comments. Even though it was clearly taken on a phone camera, with no special editing or effects, it broke the Internet more effectively than some promo shots have done. Marketing experts should be paying attention to Miss Minaj because there is a lot to be learnt from her techniques.
10. Presents For Meek Mill
Watching Nicki’s social media feeds, sometimes you almost get the impression that she has posted something by mistake. It’s as if she meant to send it in a private message instead. Such was the case when she posted two selfies in which she wears only a tight, lacy bra in front of a mirror.
Apparently, she posted them up with a message to Meek Mill, attaching the caption “Congratulations” right after he was awarded the Top Rap Album at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards. With more than 795,000 likes on one of them, it’s clear that her fans appreciate the shots even if they weren’t meant to be seen.
Meanwhile, she certainly knows how to treat her man to the best of presents when she can’t be there with him in person. The shots flew around the world as fans and admirers shared them on other sites, wondering if she was going to take them down later.
9. Flawless With Beyoncé
These days, with the cynical world of social media, there isn’t much that we can be surprised by. We all know who the secret stars are at Glastonbury long before they actually show up on stage for example. All you have to do is follow them on Snapchat and watch them arriving at the festival for the game to be given away. Then there’s the obvious collaborations.
When a superstar is headlining and they happen to have a recent hit single with another star who also happens to be in the area, you can guess they will team up. That’s why this moment in Paris in 2014 was so amazing. During a remixed performance of Flawless at a Beyoncé performance, Nicki came out on stage to join her. It was the kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience that you just had to be lucky enough to be there for. It was total magic and will never be repeated again.
8. Bang Bang At The VMAs
While performing Bang Bang at the VMAs, Nicki wore a skimpy black velvet number. Everything seemed to be going as planned, until she suddenly had to clutch at the fabric of her dress and hold it together. It appeared to basically pop open at the front, leaving her with a little too much on display.
Her reaction? She simply grabbed hold of the fabric and then carried on rapping and performing as if nothing had even happened. Of course, there are some people who have since accused her of faking the wardrobe malfunction for attention. Whatever the truth may have been, we were definitely all talking about this the morning after.
We all love a good wardrobe malfunction, especially when it comes from a celebrity famed for her body like Miss Minaj! Still, nothing untoward was revealed, so it’s definitely possible that this was a bit of a Super Bowl moment.
7. The Minaj/Swift Beef
This beef went on for longer than it should have, and the best part was that they weren’t shy about spreading it all over Twitter for everyone to see. It started when Anaconda was snubbed for the MTV VMAs even though it had the most VEVO views in 24 hours ever.
Nicki let it be known that she was viewing the snub as discrimination, and it seemed that Taylor Swift took her comments very personally. Nicki ended a rant about the nomination by saying “When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture, they get that nomination.” Taylor replied, “I’ve done nothing but love & support you. It’s unlike you to put women against each other.
Maybe one of the men took your slot.” The beef continued with Meek Mill getting involved and calling out the industry, particularly taking shots at Drake for allegedly not writing his own lyrics.
6. 4th July Snaps
Many celebrities take to Twitter or Instagram for the 4th of July to wish their fans a happy Independence Day. None of them do it quite like Nicki, however. She decided to post a series of 5 photos to her Instagram account to share with her friends. The 5 shots share a couple of outfits: one black, tight, laced bodysuit along with matching knee-high laced boots.
The other, a bright pink concoction featuring a corset top and not much else. Although she does like to flash the flesh, one thing should be made clear here: while the likes of Kim K have to bare all to get themselves noticed and break the Internet, Nicki managed to do it in lingerie. She doesn’t even look like she is really paying attention in the shots, as she poses on the edge of a grey sofa, surrounded by various items flung around the place.
5. “Miley, What’s Good?”
This moment was a truly amazing piece of live television. Miley Cyrus was presenting the show at the MTV VMAs and she had made the mistake of talking down about Nicki in an interview shortly before. She seemed to be in confident form during her hosting duties and was seemingly oblivious that Nicki would even have read her words from earlier. Unfortunately for her, she had.
Nicki came on stage and called her out publicly, saying the following: “Back to this bitch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press… Miley, what’s good?” The venue erupted as did Twitter and the rest of the Internet. You can literally see Miley’s jaw drop in footage from the event, as the smile is wiped right off her face. Cyrus never recovered from the jab during the show and her star power was quick to plunge at the same time.
4. Roman Holiday
If you still haven’t seen this video, it’s probably a good idea for you to stop what you are doing and give it a watch. The performance of Roman Holiday at the 2012 Grammys was not something that we were prepared for. Any of us. It was, in a word, terrifying. It starts out with what can only be described as some kind of mental breakdown, convincing us that Nicki is totally insane.
Nicki herself even begs for help throughout the performance which is not the most ordinary thing in the world to do. Not only could we not stop talking about this one, but it kept our hearts racing too. It finishes with her levitating up into the air in dramatic fashion, while singing religious carols. Then she carries on rapping in mid-air because nothing interrupts Nicki…nothing! Aspiring performers, take note: that’s how you slay.
3. Anaconda’s Artwork
Anaconda was a huge hit on the air waves, but we’ll get on to that a little bit more in a moment. If there were still people on planet earth who hadn’t heard of Nicki before that song dropped, there weren’t after. No matter your thoughts on the song itself, the cover image was the thing that stopped everyone in their tracks.
Featuring an outfit from the video, it shows Nicki looking back over her shoulder at us, displaying quite perfectly her most famous asset in nothing more than a skimpy string thong. It’s no wonder it was so popular. Not only that, but it spawned a whole host of memes.
These included superimposing Drake’s face onto her body, as well as using her to form the two ‘o’s in Google, much like the common Google Doodles do. It also prompted some controversy, with Minaj claiming double standards in the reactions that criticized her pose.
2. Drake & That VEVO Record
So, let’s review the video for Anaconda next. It became so much of a sensation that Nicki’s waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s is actually based on a shot from it so this should give you some idea of how iconic it is in music history. There’s also the fact that it quickly broke the VEVO record by becoming its most-played video in the first 24 hours.
But let’s get on to Drake, the real reason that we couldn’t stop talking about it. There’s the incredible lap dance sequence in the video, which was very quickly turned into a whole bunch of memes and spread far and wide. Much is made of the awkwardness of Drake’s facial expressions and how he can’t help but cover his mouth at times.
This is not to mention the placement of Nicki’s hands on his body at certain points. It’s certainly one of the funnier memes to come out of a pop video and it just kept running and running as the popularity of the video continued.
1. The Questionable Cushioning
There’s one thing that has always had us talking about Nicki Minaj more than anything else. That thing is this is of course whether or not all that junk in her trunk really is there. Some say she wears padded cushioning as drag queens do to give themselves a curvier silhouette.
This idea seemed to be backed up by a shot taken of her performing live in which there seems to be a certain amount of squishing as she puts her weight on a chair. Others have pointed to images from her youth in which she was rather more flat in shape in her rear end.
Whatever the truth may be, this photograph drove the Internet wild. It broke the Internet back before we were even using the phrase “break the Internet.” Whether Nicki likes it or not, it’s going to be sticking around for as long as she does. At least until the world is able to determine whether her backside is fake.
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