Nicki Minaj fires back at RuPaul’s Drag Race star amid MAGA backlash
Heidi N Closet called out ‘MAGA Minaj’ and Nicki Minaj hit back. (Getty)
Nicki Minaj has fired back at RuPaul’s Drag Race star Heidi N Closet after the drag queen branded the rapper “MAGA Minaj” over her recent praise for US president Donald Trump.
The beef between the two has resurfaced five years after the “Super Bass” hitmaker appeared as a guest judge on the first episode of Drag Race season 12 in 2020, during which she criticised contestant Heidi N Closet’s hair and makeup.
Heidi pulled the star up on her criticism during the episode’s Untucked companion episode, and the simmering tension between them has been a joke among the Drag Race fandom since.
On 22 December, Heidi tagged Minaj in a post on X, formerly Twitter, hours after the rapper had appeared on stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in conversation with Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk.
During the conversation, Minaj threw her full support behind the “handsome, dashing” Trump and his vice president JD Vance, and dubbed MAGA supporters “cool kids”.
The 12-time Grammy nominee also doubled down on her opposition to governor of California Gavin Newsom, due to his support for trans youth. She previously blasted Newsom for “running [his 2026 governor campaign] on wanting to see trans kids”.
“MAGA Minaj,” Heidi wrote on X, alongside numerous side-eye emojis. “So it was more then [sic] just my hair and makeup you hated,” she added.
Minaj has come in for criticism from LGBTQ+ fans and allies since she shared a TikTok video from the White House lauding Trump’s achievements which included “no men in women’s sports”, referencing the executive order he signed in February to ban transgender women from women’s sports.
During her conversation with Kirk, Minaj also urged young boys to be more masculine, telling the crowd: “Boys, be boys… It’s OK. Be boys. There’s nothing wrong with being a boy… How powerful is that? How profound is that? Boys will be boys and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
On 23 December, Minaj hit back at Heidi N Closet, re-posting the drag entertainer’s post and correcting her grammatical use of “then”, writing “than”.
*than https://t.co/BVPjFaF9oI pic.twitter.com/ndXRyvonei
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) December 23, 2025
She added a photo of herself looking out at the AmericaFest crowd, which appeared to have been digitally enhanced.
After Minaj reposted Heidi’s remark, the Drag Race alum was inundated with troll comments from Minaj’s fans, nicknamed Barbz.
Some continued to criticise her Drag Race season 12 hair and makeup, leading Heidi to respond: “The mug and hair was a chop that day I can admit that.” She rounded off by taking a swipe at Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty.
Petty is a level two registered sex offender in New York, having been sent to jail in 1995 and spending four years behind bars for the attempted rape of a then 16-year-old. He was 17 at the time.
In 2006, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for first degree manslaughter after shooting a man named Lamont Robinson dead in 2002. He was released from prison in 2013, and spent five years on supervised release.
Heidi’s hit back at Minaj follows numerous other Drag Race stars speaking out against her, and lamenting how she seems to have descended from queer icon status to full-time MAGA lover.
“Imagine coming for trans people when your entire body is a billboard for gender affirming care. IMAGINE,” wrote All Stars 4 winner Monét X Change on Threads, referencing Minaj’s experience of plastic surgery.
“The barbs about to be MAGA’s biggest voting block in the midterms…all 12 of them left,” she added.
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