Is Nicki Minaj Done with Music? Rapper Claims 'I've Decided to Retire & Have My Family'
Is Nicki Minaj saying goodbye to the spotlight?
On Thursday, the 36-year-old rapper claimed on Twitter that she is going to retire to focus on family.
“I’ve decided to retire & have my family. I know you guys are happy now. To my fans, keep reppin me, do it til da death of me … Love you for LIFE,” Minaj posted on the social media site in a since-deleted Tweet.
Reps for Minaj did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
While the future of Minaj’s music career appears to be up in the air, the Queens, New York, native has hinted at a new album — as well as changes in her personal life — in the past few months.
In June, Minaj said she and boyfriend Kenneth “Zoo” Petty, 41, had acquired a marriage license.
“We did get our marriage license,” Minaj said on her “Queen Radio” show on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio. “I think I have what I was striving for, just happiness. It was so hard to get to a happy place. Now that I’m there, I don’t want to compromise that for anyone or anything.”
Then in July, Minaj (real name: Onika Maraj) appeared to confirm she was engaged — and expecting — in her Chance the Rapper collaboration “Zanies and Fools.”
“He the Clyde to my Bonnie, ’bout to walk down the aisle and be a mommy,” Minaj rapped on the track.
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In the same song, Minaj appeared to provide a timeline to her relationship with Petty: “I met my husband when I was 17 out in Queens / If you love it, let it go, now I know what that means / While he was up North for a body / I bodied everybody and got known for my body.”
And in August, the hip-hop star changed her Twitter display name from “Ms. Minaj” to ”Mrs. Petty” just days after revealing she and Petty had renewed their marriage license.
At the time, the rapper explained that she and Petty “filed for the marriage license and we still had to pick it up and I was traveling, by the time I came back, we had to renew it again. … From that time, you have 90 days to get married. That was about a week ago, so now I have about 80 days.”
“I have to work on my album and I have a lot to focus on that I don’t want to do the big wedding now. We’ll do the big wedding later,” Minaj said. “I’ll be married before my album comes out, but will have my wedding after the album comes out. Before the 90 days is over, yes, I will be married.”
TMZ previously reported that Minaj and Petty first dated when she was 16 years old and living in Queens, New York City. The outlet also reported that Minaj has referred to him as “one of her first loves” and is “confident he’s matured” over the years.
According to New York Division of Criminal Justice Services records, Petty was convicted in April 1995 of attempted rape in the first degree for a September 1994 incident involving a 16 year old. He was sentenced to 18 to 54 months in prison, but it is unclear how much time he actually served.
Addressing her boyfriend’s past, Minaj responded to a fan in the comments section of one of her Instagram posts, writing, “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet. Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”
Petty also pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of a man named Lamont Robinson in 2002, according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Blast.
According to the outlet, Petty pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge in March 2006 and served seven years in prison after being sentenced to 10. Petty was released in May 2013, and had been on supervised release until May 2019, records accessed by PEOPLE show.
