Nicki Minaj was reportedly arrested at an airport by Amsterdam police upon arrival in the Netherlands on Saturday on suspicion of having drugs in her luggage. The rapper filmed herself being questioned by police who detained her before she could leave the airport for her show in Manchester at the Co-op Live stadium for the next stop on her Pink Friday 2 tour.
In the video, which she posted on Instagram Live, the 41-year-old rapper, whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, tells authorities that she was not carrying any drugs. Despite her refusal, she was told that she had to go to the police station in a video captured on the live recording of her.
Minaj was “arrested… at Schiphol airport for possession of soft drugs,” a Netherlands police spokesperson told NBC.
According to Minaj's recording, a man in a police uniform explained to her that he would “bring a lawyer to the office” and that they would go “as quickly as possible.” Then they told her “to get into this [police] van and enter the police station without any lawyer present.”
During the verbal exchange, Minaj alleged that airport security asked her to make a “statement without any attorney present” after “pre-rolls” (ready-to-smoke joints filled with marijuana) were allegedly discovered in her luggage.
Before the alleged arrest, the “Anaconda” creator made a series of posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) about searching her bags at the airport.
Nicki Minaj attends the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Camp: Notes on Fashion” exhibition in 2019 in New York.
(Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
“They have been trying everything they can to TRY to stop this tour,” he wrote in a tweet. He also accused authorities of trying to “plant things” in his luggage.
Minaj also shared a recording on her Instagram of her verbal exchange with a man who told her the police were going to search her bags.
Minaj then asked, “But wasn't that what you planned to do from the beginning? Why didn't they search him before getting on the plane?
The man responded, “They just did a quick random check, but now they want to open it,” and said Minaj's choice to film authorities made them want to search her bags.
The rapper responded: “'Do I have more in those bags?' and I said, 'No,' and I asked him where my bags are.” “They took my bags and put them on the plane before I even knew what bags were on the plane.”
The airline crew member simply said he was “very sorry.”
Minaj responded, “Okay, of course,” before the video ended.
Minaj also tweeted, “they said they found marijuana…they took my bags without consent,” apparently admitting that there was marijuana in her luggage that could have belonged to her security staff.
In Minaj's Instagram caption, the rapper wrote “they took my bags before I could see them” and then “put them on the plane… This is what it looks like when people get paid a lot of money to try to sabotage a tour after everything else failed. . Everything they have done is illegal.”
In her latest post on X, Minaj tweeted that she was told she had to “go 5 minutes to make a statement about my safety at the police station.”
