Nicki Minaj is released following her apparently being detained in Netherlands under suspicion of exporting soft drugs

May 26th, 4:13 UTC

The singer was heading in Manchester, England, from Amsterdam for a performance on the “Pink Friday 2 World Tour.”

Nicki Minaj was released from custody Saturday hours after she was apparently arrested by police in the Netherlands on suspicion of exporting soft drugs, authorities said.

She was fined, and then allowed to “continue her journey,” police wrote in a translated message on X shortly after 4 p.m. ET.

Minaj 41-year-old Minaj was on her way in Manchester, England, from Amsterdam to perform at a concert as part of the “Pink Friday 2 World Tour” when she was reportedly taken into custody. Minaj who’s real identity is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty is scheduled for a performance at the Co-op Live arena in Manchester on Saturday night, but the show was delayed, Live Nation UK said in an update.

“Despite Nicki’s best efforts to explore every possible avenue to make tonight’s show happen, the events of today have made it impossible,” the company claimed. “We are deeply disappointed by the inconvenience this has caused.”

Tickets are valid until the concert rescheduled the company announced.

Police haven’t identified the identity of the person taken into custody however, when asked whether it was Minaj the spokesperson confirmed that police were “arrested a 41-year-old American woman at Schiphol Airport because of possession of soft drugs.”

In an post on social media, early on Sunday morning in the local hour, Minaj said she was at her home in Manchester just over an hour earlier. “After sitting in a jail cell for 5-6 hours, my plane still didn’t take off for another 20 mins once I boarded” the 50-minute flight to Amsterdam she wrote in her.

“Please please please accept my deepest & most sincere apologies,” Minaj wrote. “They sure did know exactly how to hurt me today but this too, shall pass.”

The rapper stated that she hopes to announce the new date for the show on Sunday of Saturday, as well as that she and her crew are contemplating a date for June and another one in July.

She said she’d perform the two-show in Manchester on Thursday. She also confirmed she’ll be performing to Birmingham on Sunday.

“I’ll find a way to not only make up the date with the performance but I’m going to create an added bonus for everyone that had a tkt for this show. Promise,” Minaj stated.

On Saturday morning, Minaj had shared numerous posts on social networks detailing the incident.

In a clip she posted on X the rapper can be shown receiving a message that her bag has to be inspected.

“I’m so sorry to say that,” an individual at the airport tells her.

“But isn’t that exactly what you intended to do from the beginning? Why didn’t your team search for it prior to taking it onto the plane?” she replies.

The man claims they made an “random quick check” but they need to unzip the luggage.

In later post, Minaj said she believed that some people tried to “stop this tour” and were liars to her.

“They have taken my bags, and when I inquired about where it was they told me it was in the plane. It could not be because I had just pulled it out,” she said. “I did not give the police my bag. They’re refusing to let me look at my bags.”

In a separate post, she said: “They’re being paid big amounts of money to sabotage my trip because so many people are enraged because it’s so successful and they’re unable to eat my food. They were snagged for taking money from my travel/jets. I was dismissed. I was furious. Etc.”

“This is how they plant things in your luggage,” another article.

Minaj has stated in her Sunday’s social media post she had video evidence of the confrontation and will “have the lawyers & GOD take it from here tho.”

In the course of an Instagram live stream, Minaj recorded police officers as they instructed her to get into a van before she could be transported by police to the post. In an Instagram post on X the rapper wrote that she was told that she needed be required to “go 5 mins away to make a statement about my security to the police precinct.”

Sean Nevin

and

Rebecca Cohen