Onika (Nicki) Minaj is no stranger to “slaying” people who defy her, as shown earlier with her feuds with Iggy Azalea and Taylor Swift, but her destruction Miley Cyrus was downright savage. The feud started with Nicki’s earlier beef with Taylor Swift. Nicki called out the VMA’s for her utterly iconic video Anaconda not being nominated for the Video of the Year Award. Nicki felt that this was due to her skin color and size, tweeting out, “When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination,” and “If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.” Taylor Swift, thinking the comments were an attack on her, tweeted, “I’ve done nothing but love & support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..” Nicki responded, “Huh? U must not be reading my tweets. Didn’t say a word about u. I love u just as much. But u should speak on this.” After several days in which Taylor probably thought long and hard about whether she was ready to take on the queen of rap, she finally conceded defeat. “I thought I was being called out. I missed the point, I misunderstood, then misspoke. I’m sorry, Nicki.” Nicki, being the gracious queen that she is, accepted Taylor’s apology, and they both moved on like adults, even performing together at the VMAs.
However, being the petty child she is, Cyrus pulled the dead argument from its grave and commented on it in an interview, supporting Taylor’s argument and even going so far to call Nicki unkind. “If you do things with an open heart and you come at things with love, you would be heard and I would respect your statement. But I don’t respect your statement because of the anger that came with it,” said Cyrus. “What I read sounded very Nicki Minaj, which, if you know Nicki Minaj, is not too kind. It’s not very polite,” explained the artist. Of course Nicki found out about the interview and couldn’t take Cyrus’ words lying down. At the VMAs, which Cyrus was hosting, Nicki won an award for her video Anaconda. As she walked up to accept the award, Nicki danced and seemed to be in a jovial mood. After thanking several people including her pastor, Nicki called down the wrath of God upon Miley. As she was handing Miley back control of the show, Nicki pointed out Cyrus’ transgressions and called her some choice words. The room was so silent you could hear Miley’s career falling to the ground. Then Miley responded with “Hey, we are. all in this industry and we all do interviews and say things. Nicki, congratulations.” Nicki’s mic was cut, but as the cameras flashed back to her, she could be seen mouthing “Don’t play with me.”
However petty and trivial this may seem, Nicki was actually calling Miley out for something that is a large issue in anti-racism, feminist, and equality movements in general today. When Cyrus called Nicki out she engaged in tone policing, which is the practice of calling attention away from the actual issue the person or group was talking about by commenting on the way they spoke. Miley calling Nicki out for being angry only detracted from the actual issue Nicki was talking about, and shut down conversation about that issue. By calling her out, Nicki let Miley know (in her own way) that that isn’t okay.
Good job Nicki, now there’s one less uneducated parasite walking the streets! Lets hope you snatch away those nasty, bug-infested “dreadlocks” next.
