Nicki Minaj covers the November issue of Vogue. Inside the publication, she opens up about her son, whom she affectionately calls “Papa Bear,” and the challenges and joys of being a mother alongside her husband, Kenneth Petty.
Minaj, who has chosen to keep her baby boy’s real name private, shares insights into the origin of his adorable nickname during a video portion of the interview.
“I’ve always been a nickname person. I give everyone I love these nicknames, normally. He actually had a couple nicknames. His first nickname while he was in my stomach was ‘Bubba.’ When he came out, it just transformed into ‘Papa Bear.’ I can’t explain it, but when I look at him that’s what I thought.”
Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty welcomed their baby boy on Sept. 30, 2020 and embraced the challenges of parenthood without the aid of nannies, relying only on occasional visits from grandparents. The exhaustion she experienced surpassed even the demands of her world tours, creating moments of tension in her marriage.
“I’m not going to lie, things got testy between us,” she recalls. “Because of our history, I think we knew we’d get past it. But there’s no such thing as confidence in parenthood. I kind of wish that someone had told me—although I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to understand it—that there’s a level of anxiety, and you think it’s going to go away, but in fact it gets scarier. So often you think: I don’t know how to do this!”
Initially, Minaj believed that starting a family would shift her focus away from music. However, the reality proved different.
“I think that deep down inside, I believed that once I had a family, I would just lose the desire to make music,” she says. “I would always tell people, ‘Watch, when I have a child I’m going to cook every meal for him and bake cookies every day.’ Maybe subconsciously I hoped my focus would just be on being a mother, and I looked forward to that idea. It felt like a relief. But what happens is that you find out you have to work.”
The interview concludes with Minaj sharing a powerful revelation about accepting the uncontrollable aspects of life.
“You know that feeling when you unlock one of the secrets of life?” she asks. “For me the idea of accepting what you can’t change—it just never clicked with me before. You want to have control over everything, but that’s the easiest way to be unhappy. So now, if I find myself trying to control it all, I try to remember what’s really important. I look in my son’s face, and my whole soul lights up. He has no clue how nerve-racking it’s been for me to be a mother and an artist.”
