Nicki Minaj Announces She’s Retiring One of Her Biggest Hits: ‘It’s a Stupid Song’

Nicki Minaj is retiring one of her biggest hits. The rapper slammed her “stupid” 2012 song “Starships” during a New Year’s Eve performance at Miami’s E11EVEN, beginning to play the hit single off her Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded album before shutting down the crowd as they started to sing along. 

Waving her hand at the DJ, Minaj cut off the song, telling the audience, “Hold on. Psych. Psych. Psych. Psych.” Minaj then turned back and looked apologetic as the crowd began to boo. “I don’t perform that song no more, y’all,” she told her fans, adding to the displeased crowd, “I don’t like it! What do you want me to do?” Minaj then shut down the tune as a “stupid song” before smiling and returning to her set.

“Starships” was released in February 2012 and debuted at No. 9 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 before reaching the No. 5 spot and going platinum nine times in the U.S. Minaj previously expressed her dislike of the song in 2020 during the Pollstar Live Conference in Los Angeles, admitting she regretting making “so much” of her discography, including “Starships” and her 2014 hit “Anaconda.”  

“I wish I had never recorded ‘Anaconda.’ I like the video but ugh,” she said at the time. “My first ever solo song on Billboard was ‘Your Love.’ To this day, I like the video, but I hate the song. I could go on and on. I hate ‘Starships.’ I mean, ew. Like, ‘Starships are meant to fly?’ I’m like, ‘Why did I do that?’ I really think that every time I hear it.”

Before releasing her fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2, last month, Minaj told The Run-Through with Vogue podcast that she also regrets some of the plastic surgery she’s undergone. “I guarantee you, if you change anything on your body and do anything surgical and all this, you’re going to – more than likely, not definitely, more than likely – look back one day and say, ‘I was fine just the way I was,’” Minaj said at the time. “And that’s what happened to me. I could not believe even some of the photos that I didn’t love.”

Becoming a mother to her 3-year-old son was a big part of seeing herself differently. “I think pregnancy could’ve played a role because seeing my son did remind me of myself so much. My real self. And it made me think why didn’t I like this? So weird,” she said. “But seeing old photos, being able to look at old photos again made me realize, ‘These old photos are beautiful.’”