White House official says 'offered a call to Nicki Minaj on vaccine talks'; Singer reacts

Rapper Nicki Minaj came under fire for revealing her reasons for skipping the Met Gala 2021. Minaj, who has also revealed she has tested positive for COVID, went on a Twitter rant, claiming she wouldn't go to the event because they demanded all their attendees to be vaccinated. The rapper further claimed that her cousin's friend in Trinidad got a 'side effect' from the covid vaccine and was left impotent. Top US infectious diseases experts Dr Anthony Fauci and Trinidad's health minister debunked the rapper's claim.

Nicki Minaj via her Twitter shared that she had been invited to the White House for a discussion about the vaccines. A spokesperson of The White House later said that it offered Nicki Minaj a phone call with medical experts, not a visit. Minaj went on Instagram Live to vent in a 14-minute rant after the White House denied her claim that she was invited there to discuss the COVID-19 vaccines after she tweeted unsupported claims about the shots' potential side effects.

Nicki Minaj slams White House

The rapper went live on her Instagram and said, "Do you think I'd go on the internet and lie about being invited to the  White House? You know what the request was? 'We'd like to offer Nicki an invitation to come to the White House to speak with two people'." Minaj went on to say that she was invited to visit and talk to  Dr. Fauci and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. She said, "And do you know what I said? I said, 'Well, I would rather not have to travel. Can we do a Live? And they said they're open to me choosing a platform to do a Live. But they have never taken that off the table for me to come to the White House."

A spokesperson from The White House responded to Nicki's claim and told NBC, "As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine." Earlier, Dr Anthony Fauci, who has served the American public health sector in various capacities for more than fifty years, reacted to Nicki Minaj's claims in an interview with CNN. Fauci said, "There’s no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen. So the answer to your question is no." 

He added, "There's a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media, and the only way we know to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information. And to essentially debunk these kinds of claims, which may be innocent on her part. I'm not blaming her for anything, but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis."

Image: AP