*Following news about the death of Nicki Minaj’s father comes reports about his abusive past and tumultuous relationship with his hip-hop star daughter.
We previously reported, Robert Maraj died after being struck in a hit-and-run accident. He was 64. Nassau County, New York police officials tell TMZ that he was walking on the road between Roslyn Road and Raff Avenue Friday evening (02-12-21) around 6 PM ET, when he was hit by a vehicle heading northbound. The vehicle fled the scene without anyone getting a meaningful description of the driver.
Maraj was taken to an area hospital in critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries and passed over the weekend. On Wednesday morning, a man who is alleged to have killed him turned himself in to authorities.
Minaj has yet to speak publicly following her dad’s death, but in the past, she opened about their strained relationship.
“When I first came to America,” she told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I would go in my room and kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray that God would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother. Because I always felt like if I took care of my mother, my mother wouldn’t have to stay with my father, and he was the one, at that time, that was bringing us pain.”
READ MORE: Man Turns Himself in As Alleged Driver of Car That Killed Nicki Minaj’s Father
“We didn’t want him around at all, and so I always felt like being rich would cure everything, and that was always what drove me,” she added.
“I was disappointÂed in my father, I just wanted him to be Daddy and be the happy person that I reÂmembered, and I was afraid, very afraid, that something would happen to my mothÂer,” she said. “I had nightmares about it.”
One time, her father allegedly set fire to the family home.
“My mother was in the house and she had to run out at the last minute… We were young, it was like 3 or 4 in the morning. We saw just smoke,” she told Wendy Williams on her show.
“All of my young and teenage early years we lived in fear that my mother would be killed by my father. It was ridiculous,” Nicki told The Sun, according to Huffington Post. “It was very tough emotionally for me to have a parent who was an alcoholic and a drug addict… My father was violent — physically and verbally.”
Nick and her dad ultimately reconciled.
“He went to rehab and cleaned himself up. Eventually [my parents] started going to church a lot, and he got saved and started changing his life,” she told The Guardian in 2012. “He’s away from drugs now. He doesn’t instill fear in people anymore.”
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