‘She offered me a finder’s fee of $15,000 – I laughed’: Manager Big Fendi lashes out at Nicki Minaj calling her a ‘groupie’ after she ditched him on her rise to the top
It seems that Nicki Minaj made a few enemies on her way to the top.
During an interview with DJ Envy on Power 105.1 FM’s The Breakfast Club on Monday, Big Fendi – the man who discovered the rapper on MySpace – had some rather unkind words for his former pal, whom he says kicked him to the curb.
The CEO of Dirty Money Records got candid as he opened up about how he was unceremoniously ditched by the 31-year-old after he says she was ‘brainwashed’ by new manager Debra Antey.
‘We don’t talk. We talk through lawyers now,’ Fendi told listeners during a very long-winded rant against the Super Bas hitmaker, whose star has been on the up and up since signing with fellow rapper Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment in August 2009.
But while Fendi says he was the one who introduced Nicki – real name Onika Maraj – to such influential rappers as Busta Rhymes and Jadakiss and lined up the deal with Young Money after ‘creating’ her, he hasn’t benefitted from her huge international success.
‘Nicki tried to offer me a finder’s fee of $15,000. Yeah, I laughed at it. You can’t be serious,’ he deadpanned, clearly still unable to believe her treatment of him after all he did to launch her career.
‘Nicki’s a groupie. I mean, Nicki jumps from – Nicki started with me in ’06, ’07. I met her on MySpace – she had, like, a flyer page,’ he explained of their journey together.
‘I switched it around. She was Nicki Maraj when I met her, I changed her name to Nicki Minaj.’
Fendi placed the blame directly on the shoulders of Debra Antey, whom he in fact introduced Nicki to, saying multiple times that she ‘brainwashed’ the young singer into ditching him, even telling her that it was a bad idea to change her name to Minaj.
According to reports, Minaj’s wealth as of this year is as much as $52 million, making the miniscule $15,000 she gave Fendi a real slap in the face.
Though Big Fendi may not have profited finacially as expected and says the last time he saw his former friend and client she walked right past him and ignored him, he is in the powerful position of owning the trademark to Nicki Minaj and nickiminaj.com.
But despite that, he’s clearly still fuming over the situation.
‘How do you create an image, put it together, bring it to life. I put her with Young Money, I did everything. And she offered me $15,000,’ he bemoaned, adding: ‘They actually sent the $15,000, the money actually came. And she’s been ducking me ever since. That was in ’08.’
