The girls are fighting and this time it’s Nicki Minaj and SZA beefing on X (formerly Twitter), with wild posts, legal subplots, and even a cameo from Azealia Banks dropping her five-star review.
Here’s what you need to know.
So, it all started with Nicki Minaj logging onto X (formerly Twitter) for what looked like another airing of grievances. She fired off a series of posts aimed at Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) president Terrence “Punch” Henderson — who also happens to be SZA’s manager — with zingers like: “Tiny Dick Executive” and a new nickname, “Minus 30 million”. The strange name-dropping wasn’t random. Minaj accused Punch of previously “bullying” her online and insisted she had receipts to prove it.
Enter SZA, who posted what most people would assume was a harmless astrology-driven PSA: “Mercury retrograde .. don’t take the bait lol silly goose.” Could’ve been about anything. Could’ve been about no one. But Minaj took it as a personal jab — despite never being mentioned — and went in.
Minaj quote-tweeted SZA’s post with: “Go draw your freckles back on bookie #JusticeForDemoree #DepositionPerez Liar liar pants on fire. Sounding like a fkng dead dog.”
This wasn’t your standard celeb spat. It came bundled with hashtags referencing Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez, who Minaj has been going after online for months.
If you’ve lost the plot, here’s the context: Perez was pardoned by Trump in 2021 for a decades-old drug charge. More recently, her daughter, Demoree Hadley, filed a lawsuit alleging Perez had her wrongfully institutionalised in a mental health facility earlier this year. Minaj has been rallying behind Demoree online with repeated calls for “justice”.
SZA, understandably confused and possibly jetlagged (she’s mid-tour in Europe with Kendrick Lamar), fired back in the replies: “I wasn’t even talking about or to anyone. I had just got off stage talkin bout retrograde.”
She made it crystal clear that she wasn’t tagging anyone directly, until she was. “N—AS @’d ME. The FUCK YES IM MAD NOW DO YOU NEED THAT !??” SZA said in a now deleted tweet.
So yeah, retrograde bait was taken all round.
Now, in case anyone thought she’d retreat quietly, SZA reminded the internet exactly who she is. When fans tried to downplay her success because she’s co-headlining Kendrick’s Grand National Tour, she clapped back by name-dropping her own blockbuster shows.
Her 2023 SOS Tour grossed a whopping USD $95.5 million, according to official Billboard rankings — making it the fifth highest grossing R&B tour of the year. The 2024 leg has brought in another healthy $41.5 million. Do not test her résumé.
And as trolls warned her about the wrath of Nicki’s loyal (and often intense) Barbz fanbase, SZA stayed cool, replying that she’s too busy living a good life to care. “Stepping my ass out onna packed stadium tour where ppl show me REAL love. IN REAL LIFE,” she tweeted, adding that she has supportive parents and is “the most successful I ever been”.
Of course, Minaj wasn’t done. She hopped back on X later with jabs like: “Bitch looking & sounding like she got stung by a fucking bee. dot dot dot Draws on my fake freckles #JusticeForDemoree.”
Then, when it looked like things might wind down, she posted, “Shutup ugly. I’m in a meeting so IDK if u was still talking shit or not so if you didn’t I’ll delete later. Hoe.”
Diplomacy is officially dead.
Azealia Banks also entered the chat (because of course), saying that Nicki’s responses were “five stars”.
SZA, for her part, seems to be clocking out of the argument. She ended her side of the feud with: “Lmao lemme go back to being calm shy and meek. Yall have blessed night! See you tomorrow for night 2 Paris!!”
While we can’t say where this will go next, I am in fact blaming Mercury being in retrograde.
