News Americas, LONDON, England, Mon. Sept. 29, 2014: The mother of Trinidad-born rapper, Nicki Minaj, is spilling the entire sad tale of her and the rapper’s back story to a British newspaper.
Carol Maraj, Minaj’s mother, claims she was a victim of domestic violence and abuse while her young children, including the ‘Anaconda’ rapper, cowered in fear.
She said her husband Robert Maraj would get high on cocaine and alcohol and then terrorize the entire family and physically abuse her.
Maraj, 54, revealed how a young Minaj would sob in her bedroom as her father now 58, beat her mother black and blue in their Queens, New York home in the mid ‘90s.
She said Robert Maraj even tried to burn their home down while she was in it.
“One night I woke up and smelt smoke. I went downstairs and the kitchen was on fire. I had to run out of the house and it burned to the ground,” she told the Sun newspaper.
Luckily, Nicki and her brothers, Micaiah and Jelani, had been staying with a neighbor at the time Manaj said, since she had feared for her and her children’s lives.
Maraj also claimed on another occasion, as she was trying to take Nicki and her sons to a neighbor’s house, her husband “saw me get into the car and when it reached a stop light, he pulled me out of the car, punched me in the face and kept pulling me, and pulling me back towards the house.”
She also revealed: “Some nights, while my children were sleeping, my husband would come in intoxicated. He would be very menacing and threaten me, calling me a whole lot of names.
“My children would sit up in their beds crying and wait it out. He would bring so much fear to them, they wouldn’t know his next move.”
“He was so violent. He would threaten us and keep us up all night,” she added. “My kids would be crying until he eventually passed out drunk. He would hit the children too — but that’s what they do in Trinidad, where he is from.”
Carol Maraj has recently released a new single titled “God’s Been Good,” which is now on iTunes.
Nicki was born Onika Maraj and has previously talked about her father’s drinking and violent behavior.
“I was afraid, very afraid that something would happen to my mother,” she has said in the past.
Her father was arrested for drunk driving on October 18, 2013 and again on December 3, 2013, and subsequently indicted in New York Supreme Court on four counts of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, a felony, aggravated driving while intoxicated, a felony, operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the first, second and third degree.
He is expected to appear in court on July 9, 2015.
The news comes as Minaj’s song, ‘Bang Bang,’ reached number one on British music charts and views of the ‘Anaconda’ video climbed to 200 million.