Nicki Minaj Went To Campaign For Donald Trump, Who Told America To Look At Her Ass

I’m glad to see that cultural critics and ordinary folk aren’t wasting their precious time trying to portray rapper Nicki Minaj as a victim after Donald Trump stood on stage at a Republican campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan, and told Americans to look at her “beautiful ass.”

With that nasal, gravel-edged Queens drawl, Trump sounded like an old man telling a dirty joke to his MAGA buddies as he stretched out his words and savored his own punchline: “By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before — Nicki Minaj. That’s hard to miss. Stand up, Nicki. That’s hard to miss.” 

The audience erupted in cheers as Minaj stood up, waved, and gave them a little auction-block twirl. That moment of collective entertainment was not a surprise. White audiences have, for centuries, enjoyed the eroticization of Black women’s bodies in popular culture.

But let’s be clear: Trump did not humiliate Minaj, and she did not need rescuing from his perverted gaze. I can’t definitively confirm, but she appeared to be comfortable participating in this old racist white man’s political spectacle because she has long incorporated sexual self-presentation into her public persona to gain celebrity access and acceptance. What we witnessed at the Michigan rally was one of Hip-Hop’s most recognizable Black woman artists being flattered by Trump’s gaze and embracing her alliance with him even though it likely won’t correspond to meaningful political influence. 

Minaj is not the first Black woman who has negotiated her proximity to a powerful white man who could determine her social standing, economic opportunities, and public value. What complicates her is that she is not enslaved or a victim without choices. Instead, here is a Black woman with wealth and enormous cultural influence vying for a powerful white man’s gaze. Perhaps that attention is itself just another kind of celebrity currency.

Still, this was an extraordinary little moment in American political theater because it reveals just how easily celebrity, racialized sexual spectacle and political power become entangled. That spectacle revealed even more contradictions once Minaj took the stage and condemned the sexualization of children and gender affirming care as a threat to minors, despite the fact that the president had just turned her enhanced backside into political entertainment. 

“We don’t want our children to be bombarded with sex changes,” Minaj declared. “Leave the children alone.”

The contradiction was absolutely stunning. 

There was Minaj, standing on that stage lecturing Americans about protecting children from sexual harm and gender affirming care. She enthusiastically led the audience in chants of “We love Trump.” They love a man accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women. They love a man whom a jury found liable for sexual abuse. And they love a man who once socialized with Jeffrey Epstein, one of the world’s most notorious sex traffickers, and publicly described him as a “terrific guy.”

And all of this unfolded at a rally where that same president had just directed the crowd’s attention to Minaj’s ass. I won’t pretend to know what Minaj was thinking. Maybe she thinks he’s harmless, or maybe this is just the price a woman pays for getting a seat at the table in Trump’s political circle.

Once she took the microphone, Minaj transitioned from just being a participant in public sexual objectification to articulating her sudden concern about the sexual harm of children and gender-affirming care for minors. This is the same woman whose older brother, Jelani Maraj, was convicted in 2017 of predatory sexual assault against a child and endangering the welfare of a child, and later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. His victim was his 11-year-old stepdaughter, whom he repeatedly sexually assaulted.

In her letter requesting leniency at his sentencing, Minaj described her brother as the “most patient, gentle, genuine, giving selfless man I know.” Not to mention, her husband, Kenneth Petty, was also convicted of attempted rape in New York in 1995. How are we supposed to reconcile her documented appeal for mercy for her predator brother, marriage to a rapist, and her emphatic public declarations about protecting children from sexual abuse as a political cause?

Minaj is an autonomous Black woman who has exercised considerable control over her sexual image. She is absolutely free to support Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. But we cannot pretend that receiving attention from an old racist white male sex abuser signifies genuine political influence. What’s even more unsettling in this situation is that Minaj’s performance for Trump’s gaze echoes America’s long history of racialized sexual display of Black women’s bodies. But this time, the woman at the center of the spectacle had the power to choose.

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