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While Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus are ten years apart in age, both of them began their career in the entertainment industry around the same time. Cyrus got her big break with Disney's Hannah Montana in 2006, while Minaj signed with Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment in 2007.
Over the years, their paths have intertwined several times, but not always in a good way. The beef between Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus can be traced back to a photoshopped cover art in 2014. The feud became more vicious and direct at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Their last public comments against each other were made in 2019, after which there has been a radio silence between them.
Here's a look into the timeline of their complicated relationship through the years.
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Miley Cyrus photoshopped Nicki Minaj's Anaconda cover art
In 2014, Nicki Minaj released her chart-topping song Anaconda, from her third studio album, The Pinkprint. The cover art of Minaj's Anaconda was as captivating as the track itself.
For an unknown reason, Miley Cyrus photoshopped her head into Nicky Minaj's body, as shown in the cover art. Miley also changed the color of the body to make it look more "natural". She then posted this photoshopped image on X (formerly Twitter).
The Starships rapper then shared this photo on Instagram and wrote, "Give me one good reason why Miley made this her twitter avi." So far, this was only seen as friendly banter between the two.
“Anaconda” vs “Wrecking Ball”
In August 2014, Anaconda's music video gained 19.6 million views on YouTube within a day since its release and broke the record for raking in most views within 24 hours. This record was previously held by Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball music video, which was released just a month ago.
A few days later at the MTV VMAs, Cyrus commented on the comparison between her and Nicki and said:
"I can bring that body, I can bring that wrecking ball, but I can’t bring that a**."
Despite its popularity, Anaconda was not nominated for the Video of the Year award at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA). Minaj saw this as a snub and prompted a discussion on racial discrimination and body positivity on X (formerly Twitter). She wrote:
"If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year"
The multiple Grammy-nominated star also insinuated that black women are inconsistently recognized for their contributions to the arts.
Following Minaj's social media posts, Miley said in a New York Times interview:
"What I read sounded very Nicki Minaj, which, if you know Nicki Minaj is not too kind. It’s not very polite, I think there’s a way you speak to people with openness and love. You don’t have to start this pop star against pop star war."
Nicki Minaj confronted Miley Cyrus on the VMA stage
Miley Cyrus's press comment led to a face-to-face confrontation between her and Nicki at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. After winning the award for best hip-hop video, Minaj directly spoke to Miley at the end of her acceptance speech and said:
"Now, back to this b**ch who had a lot to say about me the other day in the press...Miley, what's good."
To that, Miley responded:
"Hey, we're all in this industry. We all do interviews and we all know how they manipulate s**t. Nicki, congrats-f**kinlations."
Minaj explains her disappointment over Video of the Year nominations and Miley's reaction
A month later, Nicki Minaj was still upset over the argument and addressed Cyrus in an October 2015 New York Times interview:
"The fact that you feel upset about me speaking on something that affects black women makes me feel like you have some big b*lls. You’re in videos with black men, and you’re bringing out black women on your stages, but you don’t want to know how black women feel about something that’s so important?"
Minaj continued:
"If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle, bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that.’’
Nicki Minaj name-checked by Cyrus in Cattitude
While things appeared to have cooled down between the two after 2015, four years later, the Flowers singer released Cattitude, a song from her EP She Is Coming. In the track, Cyrus name-checked Minaj, with the lyrics:
"I love you, Nicki, but I listen to Cardi."
It was a play on Minaj's long-standing beef with Cardi B. These lyrics did not sit well with Nicki who got back at the 7 Things singer on her QueenRadio show in June 2019 and said:
"A Perdue chicken can never talk sh*t about queens. That’s what [Cyrus] did… In the first place, she disrespected me in a magazine article for no reason."
Nicki then took a potshot at Miley's Black Mirror character Ashley O, who has pink hair, and said:
“Now you coming out with pink wigs, all you bi*ches wanna be Nicki.”
Since Nicki Minaj's remark, there has been a radio silence between the artists, at least publicly.
Both Miley and Nicki released their most recent studio albums in 2023, with no updates on their upcoming works for now.
