Pop music has been one of the few areas in mainstream entertainment where LGBTQ+ fans have been able to see and love without asking for permission for decades. For gay men especially, the female pop star has frequently served as a conduit for rage, survival, and reinvention. Few artists benefited more from that devotion than Nicki Minaj. Her early career—brazen lyrics, theatrical personas, and unapologetic excess—attracted a fierce gay male following known as the “Ken Barbz,” a group that didn’t just consume her work but championed it.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Minaj once understood this bond clearly. She spoke openly about wanting to bridge hip-hop and her gay fans, acknowledging them as “a big part of my movement.” Her alter ego Roman Zolanski was described as a gay man—volatile, flamboyant, disruptive—mirroring the way many queer fans navigated a hostile world. For a while there, Nicki Minaj didn’t just accept queer fandom, she actively pursued it.
That’s why the splintering now feels not like political division but personal betrayal.
Minaj’s public alignment with Donald Trump, appearances connected to organizations like Turning Point USA, and dismissive remarks during fan disputes have unsettled many LGBTQ+ supporters. Comments such as telling a fan “you being gay couldn’t save me,” or proclaiming “boys, be boys” as something “profound,” landed not as neutral statements but as signals—signals that the artist many once believed understood them no longer did, or no longer cared to.
In response, defenders rushed forward with a familiar refrain.
“We live in a free country.” “She has a right to her political opinion.” “She didn’t say anything about LGBTQ people.” And then the most predictable defense of all: “I have gay friends.”
Model and media personality Amber Rose offered precisely this argument while defending Minaj to TMZ, emphasizing that she employs a Black gay assistant, has trans friends, and therefore cannot be homophobic. According to this logic, association becomes absolution.
But here is the point at which the argument falls apart.
No one is saying that Nicki Minaj or Amber Rose or anyone else don’t have a right to their politics. That’s a straw man. But why do people in the public eye seem so surprised when LGBTQ+ fans respond emotionally to an alliance with movements that actively seek to take away legal protections from LGBTQ+ people?
You can like whoever you want. You cannot demand applause from people harmed by what that support enables.
Saying “I have gay friends” has never been a moral shield—it’s a deflection. It treats queer people as character references rather than human beings with stakes in political outcomes. Worse, it reduces allyship to proximity instead of action. History is filled with people who loved individuals while supporting systems that hurt entire groups.
Nicki Minaj sat for a conversation with Erika Kirk at the Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix Sunday morning. Photo Credit: Variety/Getty Images
If someone truly values their gay friends, employees, or fans, the question isn’t whether they use slurs. It’s whether they align themselves with organizations and movements that seek to erase protections those people rely on to live safely, work freely, and exist openly.
You can tell a great deal about someone by the company they keep—and even more by the power structures they legitimize.
This is what hurts so many queer fans. It’s not purity tests, or ideological test-taking. It’s a betrayal of trust. Gay fans didn’t just listen to Nicki Minaj; they championed her, built her up, and saw their own resistance in her. To hear from some in her camp, indirectly or otherwise, that this matters less than we say it does or that politics have no place in these discussions is to tell them that they don’t matter.
For LGBTQ+ Americans, the past year has taught us one thing: Rights are never granted in perpetuity. They grow, they shrink, and they disappear when those in power find them to be inconvenient. When high-profile celebrities with enormous queer followings make public showings of support for movements antagonistic to LGBTQ equality—and then brush aside the fallout with “I have gay friends”—they send an unmistakable signal: Your support is appreciated, but your fear is not.
People aren’t asking Nicki Minaj to give up her beliefs. They are asking her (and those speaking on her behalf) to recognize one, simple fact: Your politics have consequences, particularly when they overlap with the civil rights of any group.
You don’t get to reap a community’s love and then turn around and gaslight them when your decisions contribute to enabling forces that consider that community disposable.
That’s not censorship. That’s responsibility. And responsibility, unlike celebrity, is no one’s birthright.
I welcome thoughtful discussion on this piece. If you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community, a longtime fan, or someone who sees this differently, I invite you to share your perspective in the comments. Respectful disagreement is not only welcome—it’s necessary.
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