Rapper Nicki Minaj used a Fox News appearance to urge young workers to value entry-level jobs and to declare her loyalty to President Trump, a stance that continues to draw criticism she says she will never back down from.
Minaj sat down with Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" for an exclusive interview that aired Friday, covering ground few mainstream entertainers are willing to touch: practical career advice rooted in her own blue-collar past, her partnership with the Trump administration's Small Business Administration, and a flat refusal to apologize for her relationship with the president. The Trinidadian-American rapper, whose estimated net worth sits at $150 million, told Ingraham she got where she is by working jobs most people would rather forget.
Her message to younger Americans was blunt: stop wishing away the hard years. They are the years that matter most.
Before she was selling out Madison Square Garden, where she performed on her Pink Friday 2 World Tour in September 2024, Minaj was serving biscuits at Red Lobster, fielding calls for telephone companies, cold-calling strangers as a telemarketer, and selling fire extinguishers door to door.
"I did customer service for telephone companies. I was a telemarketer. I sold fire extinguishers. I did everything."
That résumé reads like a punchline in an industry built on image. Minaj treated it as a credential. She told Ingraham that the people skills, communication skills, and problem-solving habits she picked up in those jobs still apply when she is dealing with industry power players and fellow celebrities.
"What I would tell young people is: This is not the best part of your life, but it is probably one of the most important parts of your life."
She pressed the point further, warning young workers not to rush past the entry-level grind just because the paycheck is small. "You might not be making the biggest money, but you're doing the real nitty-gritty work that is going to help you for the rest of your life," she said.
It is a message that cuts against the grain of a culture that increasingly tells young people to chase passion projects, skip the ladder, and treat service-sector work as beneath them. Minaj's version is older and simpler: do the work, learn the craft, and carry those habits forward. Coming from a woman worth nine figures, the advice lands with more weight than the average commencement speech.
The interview also spotlighted Minaj's role as a celebrity judge on the Small Business Administration's Million Dollar Pitch Competition, an entrepreneur-focused event that brought five small business owners before a panel to compete for a share of a $1 million cash prize pool. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler appeared alongside Minaj during the segment to discuss the initiative.
Minaj was not the only high-profile name on the panel. The Washington Examiner reported that Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, entrepreneur Grant Cardone, and actor Dean Cain also served as judges. The competition's finale is set for September 18 in Washington, D.C.
Loeffler framed the lineup as a celebration of free enterprise. She said the judges "will only add to the excitement of this historic celebration of free enterprise in the finale of our Million Dollar Pitch Competition." The event falls under the administration's Freedom 250 initiative, a public-private effort launched in 2025.
Minaj tied her involvement back to her own roots. "Small business represents the heart of the country," she said. "You don't have to be a huge household name to be recognized by the president and to be recognized by us." For an administration that has struggled to attract A-list Hollywood support, landing one of the best-selling female rappers in history as a willing, enthusiastic partner is no small thing, especially when much of the entertainment industry remains openly hostile to the president.
That hostility is part of a broader pattern. Hollywood insiders have been pulling back from Democrats as the party's internal fractures deepen heading into 2026, and the few celebrities willing to publicly align with Trump draw outsized attention, and outsized backlash.
The most striking portion of the interview came when Minaj addressed her critics directly. She did not hedge. She did not offer a carefully worded disclaimer about separating policy from personality. She simply said what she thinks about the president.
"He's very grounded. It's easy to connect with him, it's easy to feel like he heard you, he understands you. And I just love him, and I'm not going to ever make excuses for that."
She also called Trump "fun," describing him as "not just smart and he's not just the president, but he's also someone that I can relate to." Trump, for his part, has called Minaj a "fantastic person." The New York Post reported that Trump publicly praised Minaj at a White House Black History Month event in February, highlighting their friendly relationship. At that event, Trump remarked on her appearance and her signature long nails.
The two were also photographed together at a "Trump Accounts" event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on January 28, 2026. And in January, Minaj called herself Trump's "number one fan" and pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his tax-advantaged investment accounts for children.
None of this sits well with the left. The grief Minaj receives for supporting Trump is well documented, though the Fox News interview did not name specific critics or detail specific attacks. What Minaj made clear is that she has no interest in walking anything back. In an era when celebrities routinely issue apologies for far less controversial positions, her refusal to bend stands out.
The dynamic is familiar. Figures like Rosie O'Donnell have gone on CNN to attack Trump in the most personal terms imaginable. Democrats have rallied behind entertainers who take public stands against the administration, Democratic lawmakers rushed to defend rapper Macklemore after venues dropped him from a tour. But when a celebrity moves in the other direction and publicly embraces Trump, the same crowd treats it as a betrayal that demands explanation.
Minaj does not appear interested in providing one beyond what she already said.
Ingraham also asked about touring, a question Minaj handled with humor and firmness. She joked that someone from her fan base, known as the "Barbz," must have planted the question backstage.
"Barbz, I love you very much if you're watching, and I don't want any more questions about concerts. I'm in my businesswoman era."
She did confirm that she plans to return to performing once she presents her fans with a new body of work, though she gave no timeline or title. Her Pink Friday 2 World Tour wrapped in 2024, and she has been on a hiatus from live performance since.
Minaj's involvement with the administration extends beyond the pitch competition. In November 2025, she spoke at a panel discussion titled "Combatting Religious Violence and the Killing of Christians in Nigeria" at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York City. It is not the kind of event most pop stars put on their calendar, and it signals an engagement with policy, particularly religious persecution abroad, that goes deeper than a photo op.
For the Trump administration, Minaj represents something Democrats have spent years trying to deny the right: cultural credibility with younger and minority audiences. A Trinidadian-American woman worth $150 million, with one of the most loyal fan bases in music, telling a national television audience that she loves the president and will never apologize for it is not something the left's cultural gatekeepers can easily dismiss or contain.
That may explain why the criticism keeps coming, and why Minaj keeps refusing to flinch.
In Washington, loyalty to the president is supposed to be a career risk. Minaj is treating it like common sense, and daring anyone to tell her otherwise.
