What happened between Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea? Both rappers have denied feud rumors

Nicki Minaj started her rapping career in 2007, releasing her debut mixtape Playtime is Over. Since then, the rapper has come a long way and released five albums, multiple mixtapes, and completed four headlining tours. Minaj has been involved in controversies with both younger and older rappers throughout her career.

While her conflicts with Remy Ma, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lil' Kim are well-documented, the rumors of a feud between her and Iggy Azalea do not appear to be substantiated.

The rappers were initially pitted against each other when an old tweet from Azalea was uncovered by a user on X, appearing to be a diss aimed at Minaj. During her acceptance speech at the 2014 BET Awards, Minaj made a comment that was perceived as a jab at Azalea, though she later denied this.

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Iggy Azalea explained an old Nicki Minaj diss from 2010 after it resurfaced in 2013

In 2010, Iggy Azalea moved to LA and struggled to get her rapper career to take off. After watching the television streaming of the BET Awards that year, Azalea took to her X (formerly Twitter) handle to critique Nicki Minaj's live performance. The since-deleted tweet read:

"LMAO at Nikki saying she did the BET Awards live. Errrr. If you say so girl"

Two years later, after Iggy's debut prominence, the tweet resurfaced. It was found by a X user, who took a screenshot and shared it online.

When the Swalla rapper came across it, she wasn't thrilled and replied with:

"Laughing at s*** you can’t even do…study dat formula…cornball….LMFAO."

Azalea sought to prevent any potential conflict with the veteran rapper by writing a lengthy post on X to clarify her old tweet. In the since-deleted tweet, the rapper mentioned the Twitter trend that "involves people digging up artists' old tweets."

Hinting at being a Minaj fan, Azalea continued:

"But here goes: YES. I have an opinion. And NO, even when I’m a fan of someone it doesn’t mean I like EVERY THING THAT THEY do. There was once a time when I could crack jokes, talk about TV shows or whose record I hate and whose I loved etc. on Twitter."

She then reminded the audience that there was a time when her social media was also only for her friends and family to see. She also stated that digging up her older posts seemed "really unfair" to her, adding:

"I can’t do that now. In part because you guys would make life a nightmare and in part because it would just be unprofessional."

While Nicki Minaj didn't respond to the tweet, Azalea's explanation appeared to have buried the hatchet between the two rappers for now.

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Nicki Minaj's 2014 BET award speech was seen as a diss at Azalea

On June 29, 2014, Nicki Minaj won the BET Award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist for the fifth time. As the Hey Mama rapper accepted her award, she talked about the authenticity of female rappers writing their own raps, saying:

"When you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it"

Around the same time, Fancy from Azalea's debut album - The New Classic - emerged as a success, peaking at the top of the Billboard chart. As the track was rumored to be written by T.I., Minaj's comment was linked to Azalea's success and made to appear as a diss.

To address the rumors, Azalea wrote about it in an Instagram story a few days after the award show aired, explaining:

"I have to say the general explosion of pettiness online in the last few days is hard to ignore and honestly…lame. If I had won the BET award that would've been great but it wasn't my year and I don't mind -- so you shouldn't either."

The Black Widow rapper further added:

"Generally speaking, I'm unbothered by anything that 'happened' at the BET awards and just feel worn out by everyone trying to make me have wars with people all the time... I hate to see everyone exhausting themselves on my behalf over things that I'm still not 100% sure even exist and don't matter. Just let it go."

On her part, Nicki Minaj also took to X to clarify that her speech was not a diss at Iggy, writing on July 2, 2014.

In a following tweet, the Side to Side rapper also pointed out that she had publicly congratulated Iggy Azalea on Fancy's success. She added that the rapper should be proud of her work, like every other nominated female artist.

Since 2014, both rappers have co-existed harmoniously without any public remarks about each other.