Nicki Minaj is one of the biggest female artists in Hollywood right now and been ranked as one of the most influential female rappers of all time. She’s sold 20 million singles as a solo artist, and 60 million as a featured artist. This singer and songwriter rose to fame with hits like “Starships” and “Super Bass” in 2012, and her more recent single, “Anaconda,” which peaked at number two on the Hot 100 and is the highest-charting single in the U.S. to date. Minaj does a lot more than rap — she was also a judge on the 12th season of American Idol, made her film debut in the animated film Ice Age: Continental Drift and held supporting roles in movies like The Other Woman and Barbershop: The Next Cut. Nicki Minaj turns 35 on December 8, so here’s a list of 10 things you probably didn’t know about her!
10. Abusive Father
Her childhood was extremely rough because her father, Omar Miraj, was abusive and a drug addict. She told Ellen DeGeneres that she used to lock herself up in her room to escape all the arguing and that’s when she used to write. Minaj described one incident when her mother had a dream he was going to burn the house down, and so she told Minaj and her siblings had to go sleep somewhere else that night. Sure enough, the next night, he set their house of fire. Minaj has said that her father was never actually physically abusive to her, but rather he got angry a lot and was verbally abusive to her mother.
Source: Nicki Minaj Blog via Daily Mail