Nicki Minaj’s appearance on a Turning Point USA stage praising President Donald Trump and JD Vance did not land in a vacuum.
Standing before a right-wing audience, Minaj said Trump and Vance made her “proud to be an American,” a declaration that triggered swift condemnation from civil rights leaders, political strategists, and cultural critics who pointed to the widening gap between celebrity insulation and the lived reality of Black and brown communities under Trump-era policies.
Bishop Talbert Swan called the moment “the height of hypocrisy,” noting that Minaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and has acknowledged being undocumented as a child.
“She cannot vote in U.S. elections, yet she’s praising the architects of policies that are devastating Black people, immigrants, and marginalized communities,” Swan said. “While everyday immigrants, especially Black and brown immigrants, are being rounded up by ICE, detained, and deported, celebrity, wealth, and global fame provide insulation. ICE isn’t kicking down Nicki Minaj’s door. Power protects her in ways it will never protect working-class families living in fear.”
Swan said wrapping praise for “racist white men who are erasing Black history, attacking civil rights, and brutalizing immigrants” in patriotic language was not independence or courage, but privilege.
“And it shows just how disconnected some celebrities are from the people whose culture made them rich,” he said.
That distance became even clearer as a resurfaced video circulated showing Charlie Kirk, the late founder of Turning Point USA, criticizing Minaj as a “bad role model” for Black girls. In the clip, Kirk accused figures like Minaj of “holding Black culture captive,” even as his political movement built power by exploiting racial grievances and opposing civil rights protections.
Writer, director, and documentary producer Rahiem Shabazz said Minaj’s alignment with that space was neither accidental nor harmless.
“Let it be stated plainly: Nicki Minaj is Trinidadian, not Black American. This distinction matters,” Shabazz wrote. “Her history has consistently reflected behavior that is dismissive, if not openly hostile, to Black American interests.”
He said appearing alongside the widow of Charlie Kirk at what he described as “a thinly veiled MAGA rally and incubator for white nationalist ideology” amounted to alignment, not neutrality.
“When Black Americans are under sustained attack culturally, politically, and historically, silence is betrayal,” Shabazz said, “but proximity to our adversaries is collaboration.”
Political strategist and entrepreneur Mike Nellis questioned the timing.
“Awfully convenient that Nicki Minaj found her conservative voice right as she’s losing a $20 million mansion and her husband needs a pardon,” Nellis said. “Just like Russell Brand becoming an anti-woke crusader right after being accused of sexual assault. It’s a grift as old as time.”
For critics, the episode revealed a familiar pattern where Black celebrity is welcomed by the right only when it can be used as a shield against accountability and a weapon against Black communities themselves. The same political movement that celebrates Minaj today is the one pushing mass deportations, rolling back voting rights, attacking Black history, and dismantling civil rights enforcement.
Swan said history never confuses the two.
“To praise racist white men who are erasing Black history, attacking civil rights, and brutalizing immigrants, then wrap it in hollow patriotism about being ‘proud to be an American’ isn’t bold or independent,” he said. “It’s privilege talking. Loudly.”