Just days after being confirmed for a festival in Saudi Arabia, Nicki Minaj has cancelled her headline performance citing the country’s treatment of women and LGBTQI+ people as the reason.
In just over a week, Saudi Arabia is set to host the Jeddah World Fest, a music festival that features the likes of Liam Payne and Steve Aoki on the bill.
However, last week, it was revealed that the festival was also set to feature none other than Nicki Minaj, who would be making the trip to the famously conservative country on July 18th.
As the Associated Press noted at the time, this move was met with widespread criticism from people around the world, including one Saudi woman who contrasted Minaj’s lyrics with the ultra-conservative restrictions imposed upon women and LGBTQI+ people.
“She’s going to go and shake her ass and all her songs are indecent and about sex and shaking ass and then you tell me to wear the abaya,” the woman explained in a Twitter video. “What the hell?”
Following the announcement of Minaj’s headline spot, the US-based Human Rights Foundation wrote an open letter to the artist, urging her to “cancel her performance, refuse the regime’s money, and instead use her global influence to issue a statement demanding the release of the Saudi women activists who are currently in prison.”
Now though, Nicki Minaj has revealed she will no longer be taking part in the festival.
“After careful reflection I have decided to no longer move forward with my scheduled concert at Jeddah World Fest,” Nicki Minaj explained in a statement.
“While I want nothing more than to bring my show to fans in Saudi Arabia, after better educating myself on the issues, I believe it is important for me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and freedom of expression.”
While organisers haven’t addressed the concerns of Nicki Minaj, a post was made on the festival’s Facebook page earlier today noting she had cancelled her appearance due to “personal reasons”, before taking her image down from the line-up page.
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