Nicki Minaj didn’t hold back when setting the record straight about her part in Jay-Z’s music streaming service sale of Tidal, claiming both he and Steve Stoute are spreading lies.
Record executive Stoute, 54, alleged earlier this month that Jay-Z gave Minaj, 41, “equity” in Tidal prior to its sale in 2021.
Stoute claimed during “The Pivot” podcast on Friday, September 20, that Minaj “didn’t sign the f—ing paperwork that’s the reason why you left millions of dollars on the table.” He further alleged that Jay-Z, 54, “didn’t do nothing to you.”
Minaj, however, remembered the Tidal deal differently, alleging in a series of tweets on Saturday, September 21, that she was told “they made no money on the deal so all they could offer me was a million dollars.”
The “Barbie World” singer claimed that a lawyer advised her to “sign the agreement in 24 hours if I wanted the $1 million or the ‘offer’ was off the table.” Minaj didn’t take the deal, telling her followers she was “scammed” and offered $1 million in an attempt to “be silenced.”
Minaj continued to comment on the sale scandal after seeing a story that claimed she was one of 16 Tidal co-owners who “reportedly received $8.9 million payout” at the time. (Square cofounder Jack Dorsey paid $297 million in cash and stocks for a “significant majority” of Tidal in 2021, according to Vox.)
“Every day a new man pushing 60 years of age gets fingered in the bussy then made to come on this internet & lie on me,” she wrote via X, before advising Stoute and Jay-Z to “never mention my name again.”
Minaj went on to claim that the reason Jay-Z and Stoute — who is the CEO of UnitedMasters and close friend of Jay-Z — turned the focus on her is so that “no one asks about these charges against their BFF,” referring to Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Diddy, 54, was arrested on September 16 after a grand jury indicted him amid a federal investigation. Diddy pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution.
“I mean it seems the 30-year-old tea here is FAR from stale. Patterns. Yet. SAS, UGLY ALIEN, STOUT, dick breath, etc. all talking about Onika? Why they talking bout Oniqua?!?!?!” Minaj, whose real name is Onika Maraj-Petty, wrote via X on Saturday, once again talking about Diddy and his inner circle.
She alleged that “undercover men are always aggravated with women b/c THEY have decided that they can’t live in THEIR truth.” Minaj then questioned whether Stoute and Jay-Z had any knowledge of Diddy’s past abuse as they continued to slam her for the Tidal deal.
“We want to know if u were present during abuse of teenagers & children. That’s what we wanna know,” Minaj tweeted. “Did u know about the abuse to Kim Porter & Cassie? Yall seemed to always run in a sorta … RAT PACK.”
Cassie, 38, was Diddy’s girlfriend on and off from 2007 to 2018. In a November 2023 lawsuit, she accused him of sexual abuse, beating her and forcing her to take drugs and have sex with male prostitutes on camera. Diddy’s lawyer denied the accusations on his behalf. One day after she filed, the case was settled.
Porter, meanwhile, was Diddy’s on-again, off-again girlfriend from 1994 to 2007. The pair welcomed three children before Porter died of lobar pneumonia in 2018 at the age of 47. When footage of Diddy assaulting Cassie surfaced, Kim’s father, Jake Porter, said he was “disgusted” by Diddy’s actions.
When asked by Rolling Stone in June whether Jake ever saw Diddy physically abuse his late daughter, he replied “no.” Jake added that anything he had seen was never “to that extent,” but it “made [him] wonder.”
Us Weekly has reached out to the Tidal team, Jay-Z and Diddy for comment.
