NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 12: Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty attend the Marc Jacobs Fall 2020 runway show during New York Fashion Week on February 12, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Marc Jacobs)
Nicki Minaj is facing a new line of resistance to her controversial marriage to childhood sweetheart Kenneth Petty, and it’s coming from her new neighbors in the posh city of Hidden Hills.
Since December, they’ve been gathering signatures on a petition that demands that Petty leave the city because he’s a sex offender, TMZ reported. “Say no to sex offenders in Hidden Hills,” the Change.org petition reads.
The petition notes that the rapper’s husband was convicted in 1995 of the attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl, which landed him in prison for four years. Petty, 45, also is serving a one-year sentence on home confinement, presumably in the $19.5 million Hidden Hills mansion Minaj, 40, purchased in December, per TMZ. He pleaded guilty in 2021 for failing to register as a sex offender when he moved to California, and TMZ reported that he recently changed his address on the Megan’s Law website to show that he lives in Hidden Hills.
“We, the residents of Hidden Hills, must put our resident’s safety first,” reads the petition, which doesn’t mention Minaj’s name, only Petty’s. “DO NOT allow this dangerous sex offender to live near you. SHOW that you are against sex offenders in our Hidden Hills neighborhood!”
Nicki Minaj’s Neighbors Want Her Out of Hidden Hills, Concerned With Husband https://t.co/o6bsMHc33Q
— TMZ (@TMZ) June 23, 2023
The petition brings to mind protests that are periodically staged in neighborhoods across the country when residents learn that a sex offender, recently released from prison, has moved in with a relative down the street, or that local or state authorities have set up paroled offenders in an apartment or other housing nearby. Often, neighbors will make up signs and march in protest in front of the offender’s home, attracting news coverage from the local media.
It remains to be seen whether Hidden Hills, a gated community, will become the scene of the latest neighborhood uprising over the presence of a registered sex offender. Minaj’s neighbors are clearly outraged that she has brought this scandal and “danger” to their community. In recent years, Hidden Hills, near Calabasas, has developed the reputation as the “new Beverly Hills,” TMZ said, because it’s home to a growing roster of stars, including Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.
But Hidden Hills’ reputation as a highly desirable place to live could be impacted by Petty’s presence, according to the author of the petition, resident Beverly Bardan. “The Petty couple moving in would lead to appraisal value of our homes to go DOWN due to safety concerns,” the petition said. “It would lead to children and women being a target.”
Thus far, the petition has gathered more than 880 signatures, and it appears to be gaining steam, with 500 of those signatures coming in the past week. People signing the petition have expressed concerns about sharing a community with a registered sex offender or anger that he gets to live in upscale Hidden Hills, courtesy of his rich and famous wife.
Minaj married Petty in 2019 and they became parents in October 2020. Petty’s sex offender status has long made him a controversial partner for Minaj, including among her fans, but she has defended him since she announced they were an item in December 2018. Minaj, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to Queens at age 5, has revealed to fans that she and Petty have known each other since they were “very young kids in the hood.”
Minaj also has tried to argue that his conviction for first-degree attempted rape was a long time ago, Us Weekly reported. She defended him on Instagram in December 2018. “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf, Internet,” she wrote on Instagram on the same day she posted a risqué photo of her in bed with Petty. “Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”
But the sexual assault conviction isn’t the only skeleton in Petty’s closet. He also was convicted of manslaughter in the April 2002 shooting death of a man in Queens County, New York, according to records obtained by The Blast. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but served seven.
After Minaj announced in October 2019 that she had married Petty, she said in an interview with Queen Radio that he had been “a really great force in my life.” She said: “I’ve known him since I was 17, and I feel a level of comfort with him that I hadn’t felt before to just be myself and to share who I am.”
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