Nicki Minaj Shuts Down New York Times Mag Interview: 'Do Not Speak to Me Like I’m Stupid'

After calling out Miley Cyrus in a now classic MTV VMAs moment, Nicki Minaj challenged Miley once again in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine.

For the profile, “The Passion of Nicki Minaj,” writer Vanessa Grigoriadis interviewed Minaj at the Trump hotel during Fashion Week. (And Nicki ended up shutting down the interview before it was over, but we’ll get to that). Miley initially criticized Nicki in a NYT Q&A, accusing her of starting trouble with Taylor Swift over the nominations and not having “an open heart.”

Minaj then responded to Miley in the middle of her VMAs acceptance speech on stage, saying, “This bitch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press. Miley, what’s good?”

Months after the incident, Minaj scolds Miley once again for not getting the full picture. She tells the Times:

“The fact that you feel upset about me speaking on something that affects black women makes me feel like you have some big balls. You’re in videos with black men, and you’re bringing out black women on your stages, but you don’t want to know how black women feel about something that’s so important? Come on, you can’t want the good without the bad. If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle, bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that.”

More excerpts from Nicki’s profile below.

On her confidence:

“I’m not always confident. Just tired. Black women influence pop culture so much but are rarely rewarded for it.”

On celebrities on Instagram:

“I get that people put filters on their pictures — I definitely use filters — but I didn’t know people retouched,” she says, excitedly talking about being in a nightclub the other day, taking pictures with a friend, and how the friend “cleaned all the sweat off our face” before she posted the photo. “We’re in a club! We can have a moist, dewy-looking face.”

“People are posting pictures of working out, and then there’s a change in their body” most likely from plastic surgery, “and they say it’s because they were working out! Ah-hahahaha.” Then she turns serious again. ‘‘Back in the day, in hip-hop, the thick girl was glorified. Now the rappers are dating skinny white women. So it’s almost like, ‘Wait a minute, who’s going to tell the thick black girls that they’re sexy and fly, too?’”

On her mother:

“When I was younger, I thought that the only reason my mother didn’t leave my father was for financial reasons. From early on in my life, I looked at a woman not having her money as the biggest curse. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that women stay whether a man’s rich or poor. It’s just a weakness.”

On her relationships:

“Since I was 15, I came out of one relationship and went into another relationship. In my relationships, I’ve been told, ‘You don’t have to work that much.’ But I can’t stop working, because it’s bigger than work to me. It’s having a purpose outside any man.”

Here’s where Nicki starts getting perturbed after Grigoriadis asks her about the friction between her label mates Lil Wayne and Birdman.

“They’re men, grown-ass men,” she said. “It’s between them.” How does it make you feel, I ask? “I hate it,” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel good. You don’t ever want to choose sides between people you love. It’s ridiculous. I just want it to be over.”

When asked about whether she feeds off this drama, Nicki gets upset and eventually shuts down the interview altogether. She says:

“That’s the typical thing that women do. What did you putting me down right there do for you? Women blame women for things that have nothing to do with them. I really want to know why — as a matter of fact, I don’t. Can we move on, do you have anything else to ask? To put down a woman for something that men do, as if they’re children and I’m responsible, has nothing to do with you asking stupid questions, because you know that’s not just a stupid question. That’s a premeditated thing you just did.”

Referring to Grigoriadis as “a troublemaker,” Nicki tells her, “Do not speak to me like I’m stupid or beneath you in any way. I don’t care to speak to you anymore.”