Nicki Minaj has responded to a White House official who denied that the rapper was ever invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after she expressed vaccine hesitancy on social media. The official said that the White House actually offered to connect Minaj with a doctor over the phone so that she could ask questions about the vaccine, NBC News reports.
“As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,” the official reportedly said.
Nicki claimed that people from the White House contacted her to arrange a visit following the backlash she received for relaying an unsubstantiated story about her cousin’s friend’s testicles becoming swollen after taking the COVID-19 vaccine to her 22 million followers. Minaj went on to say that her cousin told her that his friend, who is from Trinidad, became impotent after getting the jab.
There is no evidence, as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh have pointed out, of the COVID-19 vaccine causing infertility (or enlarged testicles).
Nicki responded to the White House’s statement on IG with a 14 minute rant that saw her taking aim at people who’ve called her out over her tweets and comments related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
In the clip, Nicki maintained that she was invited to the White House, asking, “Do y’all think I would go on the internet and lie about being invited to the fucking White House. Like what? Do you guys see what is happening right now?”
Nicki claimed that her team got a call from the White House requesting that she get together with Dr. Fauci, who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy.
“We’d like to offer Nicki an invitation to come to the White house to speak with two people… the two names… um, what is that man’s name… Dr. Fauci and with the surgeon general,” Nicki said.
She continued, “And do you know what I said? I said, ‘Well, I would rather not have to travel, can we do something like a [Instagram] Live’ and they said that they’re open to me to choosing a platform to do a Live but they never have taken that off the table for me to come to the White House.”
Elsewhere in the the video, Nicki said, “And then just imagine someone saying, ‘Oh, no, we offered Nicki Minaj the same phone call we offer everybody else.’ What? You think they would offer that to Mookie in the projects. No. ‘Everybody else.’ And I see why a lot of celebrities keep themselves bubbled up. You understand? We’re living in a place without free healthcare. So anybody in this country has the right to question anything about their health. Because if your health mattered that fucking much there’d be free fucking healthcare, bozos.”
(Note: Although health care in the United States is definitely not free, COVID-19 vaccines are provided at no charge to all people living in the country regardless of immigration or insurance status.)
