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Nicki Minaj has not publicly confirmed that she is a U.S. citizen, even as a video filmed on Air Force One set off talk this week that she could be Donald Trump’s next White House press secretary. In 2024, the rapper said she was not a citizen.
Minaj, 43, flew with the president to a campaign rally Sunday in Port Huron, Michigan, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. On stage, she said it was an honor to stand with Trump, urged support for Republican candidates and described the midterms as a major turning point for the country.
The press secretary buzz started as a joke, not an announcement. The White House has not named anyone to the post, which opened when Katie Zacharia stepped down after five days in the job.
What has Nicki Minaj said about being a US citizen?
During a livestream in 2024, Minaj told viewers plainly: “I’m not a citizen of America. Isn’t that crazy?” She pointed to the taxes she had paid in the U.S. as a reason she felt she had earned citizenship.
Her tone changed in January, when she joined Trump at an event promoting his administration’s Trump Accounts initiative. Afterward, she shared an image of a Trump Gold Card on X and wrote, “Finalizing that citizenship paperwork as we speak,” adding that she hadn’t paid for the card.
A White House spokesperson later told The Hill that the card was a memento, not a visa document. Minaj has not said whether she completed naturalization, the legal process through which a green card holder becomes a citizen.
The question matters days before an election she is campaigning in. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, so permanent residency on its own would not let her cast a ballot Nov. 3.
Where is Nicki Minaj from, and how did she come to the US?
Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty on Dec. 8, 1982, in Saint James, a neighborhood of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. She moved to the U.S. as a young child and grew up in Queens, New York.
She has said she arrived without legal authorization at age 5. She shared that in 2018 while criticizing the first Trump administration for separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, writing that she couldn’t picture being taken from her parents in a strange country.
According to published accounts of her immigration history, she later became a lawful permanent resident. She went on to study at New York’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts before rising through mixtapes and signing with the label Young Money.
Her politics have since swung sharply. In January, the same artist who once condemned Trump’s border policy called herself “probably the president’s No. 1 fan” and said criticism only made her support him more.
Is Nicki Minaj really Trump’s next press secretary?
There’s no sign of it. The idea traces back to a clip White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X during the flight to Michigan, in which he quizzed Minaj about Trump while she replied in the manner of an official spokesperson.
Cheung captioned the video: “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have found the new White House Press Secretary!” Minaj reposted it with an American flag emoji, and Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz asked her fan base, known as the Barbz, what they thought of the idea.
Traders aren’t betting on it. On Kalshi, a prediction market where users wager on outcomes, Minaj had a 3% chance of getting the job, fourth behind deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, commentator Scott Jennings and former Trump campaign adviser Danielle Alvarez. Polymarket put her at 2%.
Those odds reflect wagers, not reporting or polling. Neither the White House nor Minaj has indicated the suggestion was anything more than a joke.