Loni Love Defends Nicki Minaj's Alleged Diva Behavior

Source: Jon Kopaloff/Getty; Michael Ostuni/Getty / Getty

Title and story excerpt updated on March 18. 

In her latest guest appearance, The Real co-host Loni Love recently recalled an incident where she had to wait one hour for Nicki Minaj to arrive — and had to buy the rapper’s whole team Popeyes chicken. In the interview, Love spoke on comments Tiffany Haddish made about the rapper earlier this week.

While appearing on E!’s talk show Nightly Pop, Love and the show’s hosts discussed a clip swirling the internet of Haddish seemingly taking offense to being likened to Minaj. In the recording of a Clubhouse chatroom, Haddish is also heard agreeing with users who claim Minaj is never on time and says that that unlike the rapper, she treats people with “respect and dignity.” After listening to the clip with the hosts, Love agreed on one thing: from her personal experience with Minaj, the rapper isn’t “punctual.”

“This is why I don’t like Clubhouse,” Love began. “Because it’s messy. It’s supposed to be a conversation and a safe space but it gets out to everybody — now we’re talking about it. Now she is correct — Nicki can be a little, you know — ‘not punctual.’ I had her on the show — on The Real — but the girl is worth it.”

Detailing her story, Love claimed Minaj was “about an hour” late to her appearance on The Real and explained in the clip that she and one of the show’s production interns had to fulfill Minaj’s talent requests as they waited. Love recalled, “We had to go buy chicken for her whole crew. We had to go buy chicken — it was a demand — it was Popeyes girl,” she said as she spoke to hosts Nina Parker and Hunter March.

“It was a lot of chicken y’all — a lot,” she said on why she chose to accompany the intern. Explaining how in the end things worked out in her favor, Love wrapped up the story by sharing, “After I waited an hour, Nicki came and [she] killed it so it was worth the wait. Then when I went back to the dressing room, all the chicken was there. I said ‘This was worth it’ — I had the leftover chicken.”

Overall, are we the only ones wondering why stars are coming out of the woodwork to speak on Minaj these days? Even though Love’s story wasn’t particularly damning, and actually light and comical, it did portray the rapper to be a diva. All the talk surrounding Minaj lately seems pretty random and unnecessary, especially considering the fact that she is probably still grieving the loss of her father who was killed in a hit and run crash just last month.

Watch the clip of Love telling the story on Nightly Pop.