What did Nicki Minaj say about Leigh-Anne Pinnock? Jesy Nelson's alleged blackfishing controversy explained

In 2021, Nicki Minaj was featured in Jesy Nelson's single track Boyz, released on October 8, 2021. The song - which debuted at No. 4 on the UK Singles chart - was the first song Nelson had released following her departure from the girl band, Little Mix.

Following the release of Boyz, a leaked screenshot was circulated, which allegedly captured the messages between UK influencer NoHun and Leigh-Anne Pinnock - former bandmate of Jesy - accusing Nelson of "blackfishing."

On October 11, 2021, Nicki Minaj went live on Instagram with Nelson, where she made the following remarks about Pinnock:

"Only jealous people do things like this. It makes you a big jealous b*zo. I love you guys but please don’t do this. Let these people be miserable all by themselves."

The Truffle Butter rapper continued:

"Stop trying to hurt people and kill people’s lives and careers, this is the way people feed their families. Stop – if you want a solo career, baby girl, just say that."

In the leaked screenshot of DMs allegedly sent by Pinnock, the singer had replied to a story shared by NoHun on Instagram, asking his followers if he should make a dance video on Jesy's Boyz. Leigh-Anne replied with a "no" to the story, then suggested he make a video about Nelson "being a black fish" instead.

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Nicki Minaj had worked with Little Mix before Nelson's departure in 2018

Formed in 2011, in the eighth season of The X Factor, Little Mix initially consisted of Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall, and Perrie Edwards. After Nelson decided to part ways with the band and go solo in 2020, the other three members functioned as a trio.

Before the band was broken up, the four singers had released a track - Woman Like Me - featuring Nicki Minaj. Released in October 2018, the track became the lead single of their fifth studio album - LM5.

Bringing up their old collaboration on her October 2021 Instagram Live, Nicki Minaj pointed out:

"To shorty in the group, why you wasn’t mad when I worked with y’all before? Why you wasn’t mad that I didn’t call out Jesy before when I was working with y’all as a group? Why wasn’t there an uproar in the UK and the US before I met her? Jesy has been selling millions and millions of records for the last decade."

This led the Starships rapper to call out Leigh-Anne for being "jealous" of Jesy Nelson and hurting her career.

A day later, Nicki Minaj also tweeted about Pinnock acting "real messy," calling her "JeLeigh" and accusing her of bullying Nelson despite knowing about her su*cide attempt as a response to online trolls in the past.

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Jesy Nelson had spoken about her suicide attempt in a 2019 BBC documentary

In September 2019, BBC released a documentary called Jesy Nelson: Odd One Out, which focused on Nelson's obsession with reading negative comments on social media after the singer and her girl group won The X Factor.

Nelson explained how she "felt like the whole world hated her" due to the way she was trolled online, and the constant realization of the same had given rise to su*cidal thoughts in her mind.

Ultimately, the singer deleted her X (formerly Twitter) account to recover from all the damage her mental health suffered. Leigh-Anne, who was her bandmate at the time, also talked of the lasting impact that online trolls had left on Jesy, saying:

"It has been a bit hard within the group. People don't realise what bullying and trolling can do to someone. The trolls took away her love for it and her passion. But how does she get that back?"

While Pinnock appeared to have sympathized with Nelson and her sensitivity to online trolls at one point, she allegedly created room for more online trolls with her leaked "blackfishing" remark about the Boyz singer two years later.

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Despite everything Nicki Minaj said about Pinnock and the band on Instagram Live, Little Mix did not make any comments on the controversy involving their ex-bandmate.