Why is Nicki Minaj tweeting about vaccines and some guy’s swollen testicles?
Michael, Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend apparently cancelled his wedding because his testicles were swollen. Why do I know this? I don’t want to know this! Help.
Steph, it has truly been a morning. Amidst the pandemonium of the Met Gala – Grimes’ sword, Lil Nas X’s three all-gold outfit reveals, and Bennifer’s masked mack-on – there was one person who was conspicuously not there, and that person was Nicki Minaj.
Instead, she was tweeting: “My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it and became impotent,” she proselytised. “His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding.”
It has had more than 50,000 retweets so far.
Wait – why WASN’T she at the Met Gala?
Much to the chagrin of her fanbase the Barbz (myself included), Minaj is yet to be jabbed – and the Met Gala this year requires all guests to produce both proof of vaccination and a negative Covid test upon entry.
“They want you to get vaccinated for the Met,” she tweeted earlier today. “If I get vaccinated it won’t [be] for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now.”
She has also cited her new child – born last September – as a reason behind her reluctance to travel.
Hang on, what is she saying about vaccinations?
Here is where it gets a bit confusing. Despite suggesting the Covid vaccine can cause impotency in men (which is a myth – but Covid itself may post a risk to male fertility), she has since clarified her position.
“I’d def recommend they get the vaccine,” she said in relation to workplace vaccination mandates. “I’m sure I’ll b vaccinated as well cuz I have to go on tour.”
I suspect we have buried the lede here, though, which is Nicki’s revelation that fellow rapper Drake had Covid despite being fully vaccinated, making the Certified Lover Boy a 1-in-5,000 breakthrough case.
How did people take it?
Look, to say it sent the internet into a tailspin is an understatement. The reaction was swift; people were quick to debunk the tweet, considering the very real dark side of the whole affair, in which, as one user put it, “1,600 people in the US are dying every day”.
Mostly, though, Twitter users were confused at the sudden amount of testicular discussion thrust (sorry) into their faces.
For what it’s worth, Nicki Minaj has responded with the classic self-affirmation of all loud and incorrect hot takes: “I say what I want when I want how I want … Internet don’t scare me.”
To live is to suffer, said Nietzsche. To tweet is to bluffer, said Nicki.