Nicki Minaj Pregnant: Rapper Shows off Baby Bump in Brand New Photos

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Minaj broke her pregnancy news, and nearly the internet, Monday morning with an image of her baby bump. Taking to Instagram, she shocked her 118 million followers with the image, which she aptly captioned, "preggers" alongside a yellow heart. In the image, she can be seen delicately cradling her growing belly.

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Minaj didn't hold back. Just minutes after dropping the pregnancy news, she again took to the social media platform with another image of her bump. Shared without caption, this one again showed the 37-year-old mom to be cradling her belly, though this time she was seen standing. Along with completely swapping out her ensemble for the image, she also ditched her yellow hair for blue.

What She Has Said Bbout Motherhood

Although the news took many by surprise, Minaj has spoken out about her desire to become a mother. Speaking with Complex in 2014, she said that her biggest fear "is that I'll become so consumed with work that I'll forget to live my personal life to the fullest." She added that "if I'm done with my fifth album and I don't have a child by then, no matter how much money I have, I would be disappointed, as a woman, because I feel like I was put here to be a mother.""

"I have definitely put off the wife thing because I don't want people in my business. I'd rather not do anything that's going to be on paper but I definitely will be married before I have my baby. I want to make sure I do it in that order. I've always felt like that since I was young; my mother always put that in my head," she said. "By the fifth album, I will have walked down the aisle and I will at least be on baby number one, possibly baby number two."

Balancing Motherhood and Her Career

During that same Complex interview, Minaj opened up about how she envisioned herself balancing her career and motherhood in the future. Although dedicated to music, she said that her child would always come first.

"I wonder if I'm going to be one of those women who balances my child with a career. I always said, 'When I have my baby, it's going to be all about my baby,'" she said. "I don't want the child feeling like they don't have all of my attention, so I always said, 'I'm going to take a little break.' But we'll see."

Pregnancy Rumors

Years after that interview, and just after tying the knot, Minaj found herself swept up in pregnancy rumors. In October of 2019, fans became convinced that she was expecting after she shared, and then deleted, a tweet which read, "Expecting a." After deleting the post, the rapper wrote, "My bad y'all," While many fans suspected that the tweet meant she was pregnant, those theories were later denied when the rapper returned to twitter with another tweet reading, "expecting an official date/time for #QueenRadio in the morning," referring to her Apple Radio show.

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Minaj couldn't escape pregnancy rumors, though, and in February of this year, she found herself swept up in them again. A video shared to her Instagram account had fans asking, "Girl are you pregnant or not" and some speculating that she was expecting twins. That video showed her stomach being rubbed by Petty. Minaj did not allude to pregnancy in the caption or the clip itself.

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Pregnancy rumors gained momentum in May thanks to a series of tweets. After a fan asked Minaj whether she'd been cooking during self-isolation, the "Starships" singer replied by tweeting that she had been craving red meat and that she had been cooking steak, shrimp, and her "famous cheeseburgers." She also shared that she had been craving salads with extra jalapeño.

Her message, particularly her notes about "cravings," caught the attention of her legions of fans, with one person eventually asking if she had been experiencing any side effects such as morning sickness or having to use the bathroom a lot. Minaj didn't hold back from fueling the rumors, replying, "Lmao. No throwing up. But nausea and peeing non stop. Omg what do u think this means guys???? Lmaooooooooooo." In a follow-up tweet, Minaj even directly addressed the speculation by writing that she would post a photo of her baby bump in a "couple months."