A wedding for Her Minajesty? Nicki Minaj and boyfriend Kenneth “Zoo” Petty obtained a marriage license in California on Monday, July 29.
The rapper and her beau were spotted at the marriage license bureau window at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, according to TMZ, and a source at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk office confirms to Us Weekly that a marriage license for the couple was purchased, but notes that the office has not received it back for recording.
Interestingly, Minaj, 36, told listeners of her Queen Radio show last month that she had already gotten the paperwork.
“We did get our marriage license,” she said on the June 21 episode of the show. “I think I have what I was striving for, just happiness. It was so hard to get to a happy place. Now that I’m there, I don’t want to compromise that for anyone or anything.”
In a March episode of the Apple Beats 1 program, the “Megatron” MC referred to Petty as her husband, but Us Weekly confirmed at the time that the couple were not married.
Minaj has defended her the 41-year-old multiple times since announcing her relationship with him in December 2018. Fans have criticized the pairing, since Petty is a registered sex offender in New York state, having been convicted of attempted rape in the first degree in 1995.
“He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship,” the Grammy winner wrote on Instagram in December. “But go awf, Internet. … Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”
Petty also served seven years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a 2002 shooting death.
On July 26, Minaj again vouched for Petty, whom she first dated during her teenage years in Queens. “When a person is with a n–a that loved them before they had a dime in their pocket?” she said on Queen Radio. “How do you not understand that? How do you not understand happiness versus clout? How f–king dare you talk about lowering standards.”
That same day, she released the song “Zanies and Fools,” a collaboration with Chance the Rapper, in which she alludes to marriage and motherhood. “He the Clyde to my Bonnie, ’bout to walk down the aisle and be a mommy,” she raps on the track. “Ooh, I remember when I cried like, ‘Why me?’ / Now I wouldn’t exchange my life for Armani.”
