Lawyers for Jennifer Hough Claim Nicki Minaj Has ‘Reputation of Supporting Sex Offenders’; Minaj’s Team Responds

Lawyers for Nicki Minaj are responding to a claim in recent court documents that allege the Queen rapper has “a reputation of supporting sex offenders.”

For context, on Monday, Minaj’s lawyer, Judd Burstein, submitted a declaration in support of a motion for sanctions against Tyrone Blackburn—the lawyer representing Jennifer Hough—citing multiple reasons. In response the motion, Blackburn brought up the fact that Minaj’s brother, Jelani was handed down a 25 to life prison sentence back in 2020 stemming from his predatory sexual assault and child endangerment conviction in 2017. Blackburn also mentioned Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, and his 2020 arrest for failing to register as a sex offender in the state of California.

“Upon information and belief, [Nicki Minaj] has a reputation of supporting sex offenders,” Blackburn said, later adding that the “Chun-Li” rapper “orchestrated a public relations campaign attempting to discredit the 11-year-old female victim” in her brother’s case and more.

After seeing Blackburn’s response, Burstein countered back:

“Faced with a claim that he should be sanctioned because … of his entirely irrelevant accusation—made without any evidentiary support —that [Minaj] belongs to a murderous street gang, one would have expected Mr. Blackburn to limit his response to an explanation why that allegation was appropriate or at least made in good faith. He did not do so. Instead, he did something far worse: he has now outrageously alleged that [Minaj] supports the sexual abuse of children.”

He later added, “Mr. Blackburn surely included this outrageous accusation knowing that the media will likely report on the lie, thereby creating the very reputation which he had no basis for alleging in the first place.”