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Hold Up! Did Nicki Minaj Secretly Marry Sex Offender Boyfriend Kenneth Petty?

Hold Up! Did Nicki Minaj Secretly Marry Sex Offender Boyfriend Kenneth Petty?
Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty. Johnny Nunez/Getty Images

Mrs. Petty? Not so fast! Nicki Minaj recently referred to her boyfriend, Kenneth “Zoo” Petty, as her “husband,” but the couple are not secretly married, a source confirms to Us Weekly.

Related: Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty's Relationship Timeline

The “Hard White” rapper, 36, raised eyebrows on the March 12 episode of her Beats 1 show, Queen Radio, when she dropped the H-word while raving about Petty, who is a registered sex offender in New York state.

“Every night when I get out of the shower, my husband takes this really good lotion that we just bought, and he massages my feet and rubs them, and he rubs each toe individually, and the heel and the ball of my foot, and he does it all,” she said.

Though Minaj and Petty, 40, have not walked down the aisle just yet, they have discussed their future together. “Nicki has always wanted to become a mother, and that’s something she and Kenny have discussed,” a source told Us exclusively in December. “She really believes that he has changed since his troublesome days, but some of their friends are still a bit wary.”

Related: Nicki Minaj’s Complete Dating History

Petty registered as a level 2 sex offender after being convicted in April 1995 of first-degree attempted rape over an incident that occurred the previous September involving a 16-year-old girl. He served nearly four years in prison and must remain on the registry for life.

Petty served another seven years behind bars after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter stemming from the April 2002 shooting death of a man named Lamont Robinson. Petty was released in 2013.

Minaj debuted her relationship with her fellow Queens native in December 2018. Soon after, she defended his checkered past, specifically his attempted rape case, by writing on Instagram, “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf, Internet. Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life.”

Related: Unlikely Celebrity Couples

A source previously told Us that the couple first dated when the Grammy nominee “was a teenager, before she was famous,” which she later confirmed on Twitter. “We were like this about each other since we were very young kids in the hood,” she tweeted in January. “He was on my body b4 the big ol’ ghetto booty. B4 the fame & fortune. … But anyway, timing is everything.”

And Petty might just be The One for Minaj, who previously dated fellow rappers Safaree Samuels, Meek Mill and Nas. “Nicki is absolutely head over heels in love with Kenny,” another source told Us. “She fell hard and fast. She hasn’t smiled this much in a long time.”

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