Nicki Minaj has posted on social media that Twitter locked her account and that the Biden administration invited her for a personal meeting in the White House after she initiated a viral discussion about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Both outlets have responded to her claims.
The culture-wide conversation began when she posted a story about a friend of her cousin’s allegedly suffering an unusual side effect from the vaccine. Figures as diverse as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dr. Anthony Fauci have also gotten drawn into the controversy over Minaj’s tweet.
“I’m in Twitter jail y’all. They didn’t like what I was saying over there on that block, I guess,” Minaj posted on her Instagram account. She said she had planned to post a poll asking whether it is okay to ask questions. “Then boom. Can’t tweet.”
That came on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after Minaj tweeted, “The White House has invited me” to a meeting at an unspecified time in the future. “Yes, I’m going. I’ll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business,” she added.
The White House has invited me & I think it’s a step in the right direction. Yes, I’m going. I’ll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. I’ll ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human. #BallGate day 3 https://t.co/PSa3WcEjH3
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 15, 2021
Both Twitter and the White House have denied portions of her account.
The White House has confirmed that it actually offered to connect with the “Anaconda” singer by phone.
“As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,” an anonymous White House official told The Daily Beast.
Twitter also stated that the social media platform did not freeze her account. “Twitter did not take any enforcement action on the account referenced,” the company said in a statement.
The online fracas began when Minaj tweeted that she would not get vaccinated to attend the Met Gala. In the process, she claimed that her cousin’s friend in Trinidad “became impotent” after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination, suffering from severely enlarged testicles.
That assertion also met with an official denial from the Health Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Terrence Deyalsingh. The doctor said that he did not respond to Minaj “in real time” because his ministry had been scouring the island in an attempt to locate the man.
“We had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false,” he said. “At this time, there has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event.”
Minaj’s tweet touched off waves of questions among her more than 22 million followers — and led to a televised dressing down from MSNBC host Joy Reid on Monday night. Reid chided Minaj for allegedly choosing “to use your platform to put people in the position of dying from a disease they don’t have to die from.”
Reid noted that Minaj’s audience was at least 11-times larger than her own audience. (It is, in fact, more than 22-times as large as Reid’s viewing audience on “The ReidOut.”)
Minaj fired back on Twitter. “This is what happens when you’re so thirsty to down another black woman (by the request of the white man), that you didn’t bother to read all my tweets,” Minaj tweeted. “Imagine getting ur dumb a** on tv a min after a tweet to spread a false narrative about a black woman.” (The original tweet was not censored.)
This is what happens when you’re so thirsty to down another black woman (by the request of the white man), that you didn’t bother to read all my tweets. “My God SISTER do better” imagine getting ur dumb ass on tv a min after a tweet to spread a false narrative about a black woman https://t.co/4UviONyTHy
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 14, 2021
Reid kept the controversy going on Tuesday night, saying she “spontaneously” decided to address Minaj.
Reid also took the opportunity to triple-down on her previous vaccine hesitancy. Multiple times during the Trump administration, Reid warned that the president would rush through a potentially harmful vaccine in order to get re-elected. “I wouldn’t go near anything that Trump or his politicized FDA had anything to do with,” she tweeted. On Tuesday, she said she had been right all along:
When we had a sociopath president in office, who was manipulating the CDC and the FDA, pushing for a quickie vaccine by election day so that he could assure his own re-election, you could count me among the hesitant. Trump nearly broke the once-trusted CDC and the FDA to the point where you couldn’t be sure that you were hearing from scientists and not just the political hacks when either agency spoke. So yeah, people like me were real hesitant. But luckily, there have been doctors and scientists who could reassure those of us who were willing to be reassured that the vaccines, once they came out, months later, were indeed safe.
Earlier on Tuesday, Minaj retweeted a video clip of radio host Charlamagne Tha God telling Reid, “That’s why you’ve gotta have more grace, ‘cause just some months ago, that’s how [Reid] felt, and there’s still some people who feel like that. So why not use these moments to teach instead of [bashing]?”
THANK YOU, this was really needed @cthagod 🙏 pic.twitter.com/OcxCvnhyCa
— Fabio 🇮🇹 (@onikamajestyy) September 14, 2021
Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night played a clip from last September of “the crazed race lady” hailing “wise skepticism” about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Candace Owens told Carlson on Wednesday that the backlash proved “Nicki Minaj accidentally stumbled upon the Ministry of Truth … If you say something that they don’t want you to say, they will make a concerted effort to take you down.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.