Nicki Minaj emotional as she recounts the day she lost her father

Rapper Nicki Minaj has narrated the sad story of the day she was told that her father passed away after a hit-and-run incident in New York in 2021.

Speaking in a recent interview with Ebro Darden, the rapper revisited the emotions she felt when her mother told her that her father Charles Maraj had succumbed to his injuries from being hit by a car.

"Everything started spinning. I couldn't believe how quickly everything happened, especially because he was the happiest that I had heard him in a long time," she said.

Going on, she revisited the last time she spoke to her father before the accident, which was earlier that same day. He had called to express interest in seeing her and her son, whom he hadn't met yet at the time. Minaj recalled how excited he sounded to come and see them, and she was in turn, happy with the thought of seeing him.

Nicki Minaj on the set of the Ebro Darden podcast [Apple Podcast] Pulse Nigeria

She continued, "The phone rings, and I see it's my father. I normally would not have picked up, because I don't like to be on the phone with the baby there. I would've called him back. Something said, 'Pick up the phone'. picked up, he was very happy, and he was like, 'Baby, I could come on Monday?' because he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali to help me. I kept on saying, 'Come on out. He wasn't really happy, but I knew that, when he came to be with us, we were going to be happy. He is this amazing, great person, who livens up the whole house. I was like, 'Yes, we were going to get help.'"

Sadly, her father never got to meet her son. She added that the incident was the inspiration behind her song, Are You Gone Already from her new album.