Nicki Minaj was apparently arrested at an airport by Amsterdam police upon her arrival in the Netherlands on Saturday on suspicion of carrying 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 arena for the next stop on her Pink Friday 2 Tour.
In the video, which she posted to Instagram Live, the 41-year-old rapper whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty tells the authorities she was not carrying any drugs. Despite her denial, she was told she needed to go to the police station in video captured on her live recording.
Minaj was “arrested … at Schiphol Airport because of possession of soft drugs,” a spokesperson for the police in the Netherlands told NBC.
According to Minaj’s recording, a man in a police uniform explained to her that she “would get a lawyer at the office” and they would go “as fast as possible.” She was then told “to get into this [police] van and go into the precinct with no lawyer present.”
During the verbal exchange, Minaj alleged that airport security asked that she make a “statement with no lawyer present” after “pre-rolls” (ready-to-smoke joints filled with marijuana) were allegedly discovered in her luggage.
Before the supposed arrest, the “Anaconda” hit-maker made a series of posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) about her bags getting searched 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’ve been trying everything they possibly can to TRY to stop this tour,” she wrote in one tweet. She also accused authorities of trying to “plant things” in her luggage.
Minaj also shared a recording on her Instagram of her verbal exchange with a man who told her that police were going to be searching her bags.
Minaj then asked: “But wasn’t that what you planned on doing from the get-go? Why didn’t you guys search it before it went on the plane?”
The man responded: “They did just a random quick check, but now they want to open it” and said Minaj choosing to film the authorities resulted in them wanting to search her bags.
The rapper replied: “ ‘Do I have any more in those purses’ and I said, ‘No,’ and I asked him where are my bags.” “They took my bags and put them on the plane before I could know what bags are on the plane.”
The airline crew member simply said he was “so sorry for that.”
Minaj replied “OK, of course,” before the video ended.
Minaj also tweeted: “they said they found weed…they took my bags without consent,” seemingly admitting that there was marijuana in her luggage that may have belonged to her security staff.
In Minaj’s caption on Instagram, the rapper wrote “they took my bags before I could see them” then “put it on the plane…This is what it looks like when ppl are paid big money to try to sabotage a tour after all else failed. Everything they’ve done is illegal.”
In her final post on X, Minaj tweeted that she was being told she had to “go 5 mins away to make a statement about my security to the police precinct.”
