You knew that Nicki Minaj was silently simmering like a volcano that’s about to blow. She had been far too quiet — which is counter to her nature — after Miley Cyrus put her on full furnace blast this past week, criticizing the Barbz for not being nominated for best video for “Anaconda.”
And when she got onstage, her words gushed at Cyrus like a firefighter’s hose on full power.
Let’s recap quickly: Minaj voiced her indignation about having her sexually provocative video overlooked in the same video awards category that Taylor Swift’s video was nominated. And she went on a rant about how very thin models and artists are rewarded, which was seen as a subtle jab at Swift. Swift took umbrage with Minaj’s stinging words and they went back and forth a couple of times.
Enter Miley Cyrus, stage left, who inserted herself uninvited into the conversation, telling the Hollywood Reporter that Minaj was in the wrong for coming for MTV and Swift like she did:
“I don’t respect your statement because of the anger that came with it,” “And it’s not anger like, ‘Guys, I’m frustrated about some things that are a bigger issue.’ You made it about you. Not to sound like a b***, but that’s like, ‘Eh, I didn’t get my VMA’ … If you want to make it about race, there’s a way you could do that. But don’t make it just about yourself. Say: ‘This is the reason why I think it’s important to be nominated. There’re girls everywhere with this body type.’ … What I read sounded very Nicki Minaj, which, if you know Nicki Minaj, is not too kind. It’s not very polite.”
Well, when Minaj won for Best Hip-Hop Video for “Anaconda,” she shocked viewers by coming for Cyrus during her acceptance speech on live international TV.
Minaj suddenly turned her head to fired off to Cyrus: “And now…back to…this b—- that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press, Miley, what’s good?!”
Check out what happened next:
A shocked and frustrated Cyrus tried to fumbled up some words to prevent a full-scale war onstage: “Hey, we’re all in this industry, we all do interviews, and we all know how they manipulate shit. Nicki, congratulations” before strongly implying that Minaj shouldn’t be upset for not being nominated.
While Cyrus tried to calm the beast that was rising inside of Minaj, the Barbz reportedly backed away from the mic and repeated, “Don’t play with me, b—-.”
One reporter, Jezebel’s Kara Brown, who had a front row seat to the developing fracas, had this observation:
“It definitely didn’t seem like Miley knew Nicki was going to say that.”