• Nicki Minaj says “many celebrities” secretly support Donald Trump but are afraid to say it publicly.
• She credits a 2025 swatting incident — and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s response — as her breaking point.
• Minaj says she was “completely ignored” by California Gov. Gavin Newsom when she sought help with repeated swatting attacks.
• She also ties her political shift to disillusionment with Obama, resentment toward Jay-Z, and backlash over her 2021 vaccine comments.
• The rapper says she’s willing to campaign for Trump in the upcoming midterm elections.

Nicki Minaj has never been subtle about her support for Donald Trump — but in a new cover profile for TIME, conducted at Mar-a-Lago, the 43-year-old rapper goes further than she ever has before, claiming she’s just the visible tip of a much larger iceberg of celebrity MAGA sympathizers.

“Many celebrities feel the way I do, but they don’t say it,” Minaj told TIME’s Eric Cortellessa. “Sometimes you just need one brave person to get the brunt of the impact. I think I am the catalyst for that change. Hopefully, when they see me and hear me speak and feel my energy, that will make them say, ‘You know what: Who am I afraid of? What am I afraid of?'”

It’s a bold claim — and a revealing one. Because for years, Minaj says, she was one of those silent supporters herself.

“I felt that way already about him, just that I didn’t dare act like that publicly,” she said. “It’s been ingrained in everyone’s brain in the music business that we are supposed to be a Democratic family. I just knew they would not like me supporting Trump.”

The Swatting Incidents That Changed Everything

The moment that finally pushed Minaj to go public wasn’t a policy debate or a campaign rally. It was a terrifying, repeated pattern of swatting attacks on her Los Angeles home — and who showed up to help, and who didn’t.

When the “Super Bass” rapper reached out to California Governor Gavin Newsom via X for help dealing with the attacks, she says she got nothing back. “He just completely ignored me, with all the money I spent in taxes,” she recalled.

Then, after another swatting incident in April 2025, Republican U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna called her directly, connected her with law enforcement, and helped set her up with a private security firm.

“I was shocked,” Minaj said. “I’d never seen anyone in politics treat me that way. That’s what made me say that I don’t care to keep this a secret anymore.”

It’s a contrast she clearly still feels deeply — the Democratic governor who ignored her, versus the Republican congresswoman who picked up the phone.

Obama, Jay-Z, and a Long-Simmering Frustration

But the swatting incident didn’t create Minaj’s conservatism — it just unlocked it. She traces her disillusionment back further, to Barack Obama’s presidency and the unspoken expectation that Black entertainers fall in line politically.

“I just saw so many videos of Black men saying that they didn’t like the way they felt about that speech that Obama gave,” she said, referring to Obama’s 2024 appearance campaigning for Kamala Harris. “They felt like they weren’t being listened to.”

And then there’s Jay-Z — because of course there is. Minaj has been in a long-running war with Hov and Roc Nation, accusing the company of sabotaging her career and alleging he owes her somewhere between $100 and $200 million. In the TIME interview, she wove her Jay-Z grievances directly into her political worldview.

“I think Jay-Z ended up costing Obama a lot, whether he knows it or not,” she said. “Lots of rappers don’t like Jay-Z and were afraid to say it.”

The throughline she’s drawing: powerful people protecting their circles, leaving others out — and the music industry’s Democratic groupthink as just another version of that same dynamic.

The Vaccine Comments, Revisited

Minaj also addressed the moment that first put her in the crosshairs of the left: her 2021 tweet suggesting her cousin’s friend in Trinidad had experienced swollen testicles after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Trinidad and Tobago’s Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh publicly called the claim false, and Minaj faced widespread condemnation from Democrats and public health officials.

She’s not backing down. “I guess they had examined everyone’s testicles in Trinidad and came back to tell me that I was lying,” she told TIME.

She also pointed to that backlash as part of what accelerated her rightward drift — and suggested that critics may have overplayed their hand. “If they would have left me alone, maybe I would not have done so much,” she said.

From Fan to Front Lines

Since going public with her support, Minaj has moved quickly through the MAGA orbit. She appeared alongside Trump at the Trump Accounts Summit in January — where the president revealed she had invested “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in Trump Accounts — and attended the premiere of the Melania documentary at the Kennedy Center. She’s spoken at the United Nations about violence against Christians and appeared at a Turning Point USA event. She’s also flaunted a Trump Gold Card she says was gifted to her by the president, claiming it grants her citizenship.

At a January speech, she declared: “I am probably the President’s No. 1 fan. And that’s not going to change.”

She’s even found a way to frame Trump’s cultural pull in terms her fans might understand. “It’s the same way Marilyn Monroe represents a vibe,” she told TIME. “Donald Trump is his own vibe.”

As for what comes next, Minaj is clear: she’s in. “I’ll do whatever it is,” she said when asked about supporting Trump’s allies in the upcoming midterms. And on a more personal note, she added something that sounds like it’s about more than just politics. “I’ve never felt happier. I’ve never felt better. When you can be yourself, you’re happier.”

Whether other celebrities follow her lead — or stay quiet — is the question she’s now openly daring them to answer.

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