Nicki Minaj left fans confused after referring to Princess Diana as her “dear friend” over the weekend.
The “Super Bass” singer, 41, was performing in Birmingham, England, on Sunday night when she brought up the late Princess of Wales as if they knew each other.
Minaj was 14 years old when Diana was killed at age 36 in a car crash while being chased by paparazzi in 1997.
During the concert, Minaj asked fans where they were from and one person said Wales. Then, Minaj put on a British accent and talked about Diana to the crowd.
“Wales — it always reminds me of a dear friend of mine, well, she’s not here anymore, but the Princess of Wales,” Minaj said, as the audience cheered.
“Let’s have a moment of silence for her,” the rapper added.
After the crowd briefly got quiet, Minaj carried on with her concert.
Minaj has a song with Ice Spice called “Princess Diana” that came out in 2023.
However, the rapper’s random tribute to Diana at her concert sparked a big social media reaction from fans who were extremely confused by the concert pause.
“A dear friend of mine … She was 14 when Diana died …” one fan wrote with a laughing emoji on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The way the minute’s silence was 3 and a half seconds,” penned another.
A different person said on TikTok, “The fact Welsh accents r completely different from London accents.”
Minaj has long been a fan of Diana’s. In fact, the “Bang Bang” hitmaker claimed in 2018 that her album “Queen” was inspired by the late royal.
“8|10|18 #Queen THE ALBUM ~ It’s the strength that causes the confusion & fear. Why is she strong? #WhyDoThePublicStillSupportHer God bless this woman’s legacy & every woman who’s ever felt like this. #QueenDiana,” Minaj tweeted at the time.
The tweet also featured a clip from Diana’s 1995 BBC Panorama interview where she said that she’s seen as “a threat of some kind.”
“I’m here to do good. I am not a destructive person,” Diana added in the clip. “I think very strong women in history had to walk down a similar path. It’s the strength that causes the confusion and the fear.”
Minaj later released her own song named after Diana in her collab with Ice Spice in April 2023. The song peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
While promoting the song, Minaj jokingly tweeted that she was attending King Charles III’s coronation, which took place the following month.
“Properly excited, really. Yes, it appears there was one seat open right next to [Prince] Harry,” she joked on X.
Minaj’s latest tribute comes after she was arrested in Amsterdam on Saturday for allegedly carrying drugs. In police and Instagram Live footage that she posted, the musician insisted she had no contraband. Dutch officials posted on X that she was fined 350 Euros (around $380) before being allowed to “continue her journey.”
Amid the drama, Minaj was forced to cancel her concert in Manchester, England, because she was detained for six hours. She was taken into police custody at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on suspicion of “exporting soft drugs,” confirming that they’d found marijuana in her luggage.
“Please please please accept my deepest & most sincere apologies,” she later apologized to fans on the social media platform. She claimed that the police took her bags without her “consent,” adding that the weed belonged to one of her security guards.
She also plans to take legal action against the Amsterdam authorities. “I have sooooooooo much video evidence. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” she wrote. “I’ll have the lawyers & GOD take it from here tho.”
