So, um … we guess congratulations are in order?
Yes, Nicki Minaj is a married woman, and if she’d gotten hitched to, say, another rapper, or some guy who works the drive-thru window at Dunkin’ Donuts, or even a lesser-known member of the Trump family, we’d be happy for her.
The problem is, she married Kenneth Petty, a man whose last name belies the severity of his many crimes.
Minaj and Petty started dating back in December of 2018, and from the start, fans took issue with the relationship.
The problem wasn’t that Nicki had decided to settle down with some nobody.
We wish it were that simple.
The problem, you see, was that Petty is a convicted rapist.
More on that later, but for now, here’s a rundown on Ken and Barbz winding road to the altar.
You might be saying to yourself, "Hey, The Hollywood Gossip, didn’t Minaj and Petty get married back in August?"
Well, yes, but not really.
“We did get our marriage license,” Nicki said in a podcast interview over the summer.
“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.”
“We still had to pick it up and I was traveling, by the time I came back, we had to renew it again,” she explained.
“From that time, you have 90 days to get married. That was about a week ago, so now I have about 80 days," Minaj said at the time.
“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," the rapper continued.
"I’m very happy about that because my baby makes me so happy.”
On Monday, Nicki took to Instagram to reveal that she and Petty had finally gotten hitched.
Now for the bad stuff.
Petty has been arrested for numerous violent crimes, most notably a sexual assault, for which he served nearly four years in prison.
According to TMZ, he was found guilty of first-degree attempted rape in April 1995.
Nicki has attempted to explain the conviction away in very unconvincing fashion:
"He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship," she tweeted at the time the story broke.
"But go awf, internet. y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo."
Yeah, the problem with that explanation is, they don’t lock teenagers up for consensual having sex in America.
According to court documents, Petty "used a sharp object" as a weapon when he tried to force the girl to have intercourse.
And that’s just the beginning of Petty’s mile-long rap sheet.
In 2002, Kenneth was convicted of first-degree manslaughter for his role in the shooting death of Lamont Robinson.
Police say robbery was not a motive and describe the shooting as "cold-blooded."
Petty pled guilty after he was positively ID’d by Robinson prior to his death, and he wound up serving 7 years in prison.
So, yeah … best of luck, Nicki.
Sounds like you picked a winner.