Comedian and actor Mike Epps publicly apologized Tuesday for remarks he made days earlier about rapper Nicki Minaj and President Donald Trump during a stand-up performance in Kentucky.
The comments occurred Feb. 6 at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, where Epps was appearing as part of his "We Them Ones" comedy tour.
According to Billboard, Epps made a sexually explicit joke suggesting Minaj had participated in a group sex act with Trump and others. He also joked that the rapper had performed sexual favors in exchange for assistance with her U.S. citizenship.
In an Instagram story posted Feb. 10, Epps addressed the remarks directly.
"Y'all know I'm Mr Accountability. You know, I say stuff and do stuff, and then I go to bed, wake up the next morning, [having] prayed on and thought about it," he said.
"I just want to apologize to you, Nicki Minaj, for saying the stuff that I said. I want to apologize to your husband, your kids, all that for saying what I said."
He added that he sometimes drinks before going onstage and described himself as "non-filtered."
"I'm a comedian," Epps said. "Sometimes I get on that stage, and I have a little drink, and I go wild."
"I'm non-filtered. So, just wanted to apologize to you."
"Not explaining myself, but I am Mr. Accountability… I love apologizing, which is something a lot of people don't know how to do. [I] apologize to you, Nicki," he wrote.
Minaj, 43, has recently voiced public support for Trump.
In clips shared earlier this month on X from a podcast interview with Katie Miller, she discussed her reasons for speaking out.
"Religious freedom is something that's very important to me, but if I'm being honest, President Trump … when I saw how he was being treated, over and over and over, I just couldn't handle it," Minaj said.
She drew parallels between Trump's public treatment and her own experiences with criticism.
"I felt that a lot of that bullying and the smear campaigns and all of the lying, I felt that that had been done to me for so many years," said Minaj.
"And I was watching it in real time happen to someone else, and I didn't think he deserved it."
In another portion of the interview, Minaj said she started paying closer attention during the last presidential campaign.
"During the last [presidential] campaign … I saw something, and I texted someone I knew right away, and I said, 'This is a mistake.' And I also said, 'All of this is making me want to get into politics,'" she said.
Separately, Minaj stated on X that the president granted her a Trump gold card, which provides applicants with residency and a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
The New York Times later reported that the "Gold Trump card free of charge" Minaj referenced was a "memento" rather than an official "visa document," citing a White House official.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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