Nicki Minaj stunned fans with her announcement that she was retiring to start a family.
Nicki has been dating Kenneth Petty for some time now. Despite rumors the two would be getting married soon, no one imagined she would be bowing out of the hip hop game to settle down.
Plenty has been said about Kenneth Petty, who uses the nickname Zoo, and many have questioned Nicki Minaj’s choice in men. So what is it about Petty that would have Minaj putting her career on hold? Here’s what we know.
Who is Kenneth Petty?
Kenneth Petty is a native of Queens, New York, just like Nicki Minaj. Petty reportedly works in the music industry and is working on a few projects with Nicki. Aside from that, not much else is known about what he does or what those projects are.
Last year, rumors about Nicki Minaj’s romance with Kenneth Petty were all over the place. In December, just after Minaj’s birthday trip to the Turks and Caicos, she finally shared a photo of Petty, making them Instagram official.
This photo set off quite a few alarms, as many couldn’t believe Nicki would get serious with someone like Petty. After all, the 40-year-old is a registered sex offender in New York, and he already has five children.
The pair were said to have been introduced by mutual friends, but their romance isn’t the only time they’ve been together. When it became known that Nicki and Kenneth were a couple last year, multiple reports claimed that, before Minaj’s fame, they actually dated.
According to Hip Hollywood, Petty is a level two sex offender, which means that he is considered to be of moderate risk to be a repeat offender. Petty spent time in prison after being convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl when he was just 16 years old himself. As a result of his conviction, Petty is required to register as a sex offender for life.
Last year, when fans voiced their concern about Nicki Minaj’s choice in men on Instagram, she responded in the comments, “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. Thank you boo.”
It turns out that the sex offender registry may be one of the most alarming parts of Kenneth Petty’s record, but it’s not all of it. In fact, Nicki Minaj’s man has 12 mugshots and spent even more time in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter for the 2002 shooting death of a man named Lamont Robinson.
Initially, Petty was tried for second-degree murder but was able to make a deal and have the charges reduced to manslaughter. He ended up serving seven years out of a 10-year sentence and was released in 2013 to spend five years on supervised release.
That ended in May of last year.
Now, Nicki Minaj is ready to hang it all up as she takes the next step with Kenneth Petty as they plan to start a family together. It’s not clear when the two will get married, but just last month on Queen Radio, Nicki admitted that they had obtained a marriage license.