By Avi Selk
Rapper and pop star Nicki Minaj was reportedly arrested in the Netherlands on Saturday after police said they found drugs in her luggage when she tried to board a plane for a concert in England.
Minaj documented the incident on social media, including in footage she appears to have shot at an airport near Amsterdam. In one video, a man in a grey suit, who Minaj later identified as her pilot, apologetically informed her that police needed to search all her luggage.
“He doesn’t believe you, that you have more with you than you say,” the man says in the video.
“He asked me if I had any more in my purses and I said no,” Minaj replies.
In another video, an officer tells Minaj to go to a police station. The footage shows Minaj refusing to do so and demanding a lawyer. She wrote on the social media platform X that authorities had found “weed” – slang for marijuana – in her baggage, which she said belonged to one of her security guards.
Netherlands military police spokesperson Robert Van Kapel told AP that the agency had arrested a 41-year-old American woman on suspicion of “exporting soft drugs”. Police later said the woman arrested at Schiphol Airport had been fined and allowed to continue her journey.
Nicki Minaj was reportedly arrested in Amsterdam.Credit: AP
Dutch authorities did not immediately respond to questions from The Washington Post.
Minaj is in the middle of a world tour for her latest studio album, Pink Friday 2. She was due to perform Saturday evening at a Manchester concert hall, which delayed its opening by half an hour after reports of the arrest.
Minaj went dark on social media shortly after reporting that she had been asked to go to the police station, and it was unclear whether she would make the concert. The BBC reported that thousands of people were waiting for her, some chanting: “Free Nicki Minaj!”
Throughout the day, Minaj had repeatedly accused Dutch authorities of trying to “sabotage” her tour.
“They’re being paid big money to try to sabotage my tour b/c soooooo many ppl are mad that it’s this successful & they can’t eat off me,” she wrote in one X post.
“This is Amsterdam btw, where weed is legal,” she wrote in another, inaccurately.
Marijuana is illegal in the Netherlands but tolerated for recreational use. It cannot be taken on a plane.
Minaj’s representative could not immediately be contacted for comment.
The Washington Post
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