On the same day Nicki Minaj appeared outside a polling station in New Hampshire as one of President Trump’s favorite MAGA mouthpieces, her former lawyers went back to court with renewed claims she still hasn’t paid an outstanding legal bill that’s about to top $300,000.
Lawyers for the firm Gordon Recs Scully Mansukhani filed their renewed request for default judgment within minutes of her public appearance Tuesday, saying the “Starships” rapper breached their legal agreement and now owes them $295,605 for services, fees, and interest. The firm represented Minaj in a copyright infringement lawsuit that claimed her song “I Lied” directly copied the instrumentation and beat of a copyrighted song titled “onmysleeve” by Julius Johnson. The copyright case ended with a private settlement and was dismissed.
The firm said its underlying lawsuit seeking the money, filed in March, “has not been responded to in any way by [the rapper].” Now that 30 days have passed since she was served, the firm is again requesting the $295,605 as a default award. A hearing on the request is set for Nov. 16.
Reps for Minaj did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone.
As the new request was being filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Minaj made her appearance outside a polling station in Derry, N.H., accompanied by police, according to NBC10Boston. She posed for a photo in front of a campaign sign for Anthony DiLorenzo, the Trump-endorsed Republican businessman who lost his bid for Congress to Democrat Stefany Shaheen.
Minaj’s election day stop followed after she appeared with Trump at a rally in Michigan last week, where she led the crowd in a chant of “We love Trump.” It was the latest display of her bizarre alliance with a president she once vowed never to endorse.
“We don’t want our children to be bombarded with sex changes, right?” she told the crowd before offering to support Trump if he sought a third term. Trump, meanwhile, drew attention to her appearance. “By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before: Nicki Minaj! That’s hard to miss,” he said.
Minaj had accompanied Trump to the rally aboard Air Force One, where she staged a mock interview in the role of White House press secretary. She praised Trump as a businessman and a “great guy” who had “won three elections,” though he has won two.
Tuesday’s midterm elections dealt a decisive blow to Trump and his supporters, including Minaj, with Democrats winning control of both the House and Senate.
The new default judgment sought by the law firm is not Minaj’s first legal battle over an unpaid debt. In January, she narrowly avoided the court-ordered sale of her $20 million Los Angeles mansion when she paid a $500,000 default judgment awarded to a security guard who accused her husband, Kenneth Petty, of assaulting him backstage at a 2019 concert in Germany.
