The hip-hop star spoke candidly in the cover story for the December issue of ‘Vogue’
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Nicki Minaj is opening up about her experience with addiction.
“No one told me that this was a narcotic and this was addictive,” Minaj, who began taking the drug even when she wasn’t in pain, told the fashion magazine. “Luckily I was able to ground myself. But — once an addict, always an addict. I feel like if you’ve ever experienced addiction to anything, which I have, you always have to think twice and three times about the choices that you make.”
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The Grammy winner — who will release her new album Pink Friday 2 on Dec. 8 — also reflected on other artists who struggled with substance abuse while in the spotlight.
“Look at some of our biggest celebrities. They eventually either get laughed out of wanting to go outside anymore, like Michael Jackson, or criticized, like Whitney Houston, or they fight silent battles, like Prince,” she said. “These are some of the greatest of all time. And one day they decided, ‘You know what? I’d rather self-medicate and be in my own world.’”
In the Vogue story — for which she posed with her and husband Kenneth Petty’s 3-year-old son — the “Anaconda” rapper also looked back on how her father Robert Maraj’s addiction to crack cocaine during her childhood has informed her perspective on substance abuse. “I feel like I will always consider myself to be just like my father,” she said.
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“I think about watching my father go back and forth, and I just wish that at the time I understood that he wasn’t doing it because he wanted to,” Minaj (whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty) added. “Now I realize, those people weren’t making those choices because they wanted to hurt their family. Addiction took over their bodies and their lives. They were victims too.”
The performer’s father died in a hit-and-run car crash at age 64 in February 2021.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, the “Last Time I Saw You” artist opened up about her ups and downs with her father.
“He went to rehab and cleaned himself up,” she said at the time. “Eventually [my parents] started going to church a lot, and he got saved and started changing his life. He’s away from drugs now. He doesn’t instill fear in people anymore.”
Minaj will soon release her fifth studio album and recently shared how “proud” of the record she is in an Instagram Live.
“I am so filled with emotion about it because, as y’all know, it’s been a long time coming,” the “Super Freaky Girl” rapper said.
She added, “This entire album will be the biggest gift I have ever given humanity thus far. I can stand by that. I will bet any amount of money that Pink Friday 2 the album is going to make people fall in love immediately.”
