Cardi B vs. Nicki Minaj: The Real Story Behind Their Bad Blood

Nicki Minaj and Cardi B are back at it. The spark this time: Cardi dropped her new album, 'Am I the Drama?' on September 19, and Nicki allegedly jumped on X with now-deleted posts suggesting Cardi was juicing the numbers. Cardi did not take that quietly.

What set it off now

According to multiple outlets, Nicki questioned the album’s sales in posts that disappeared almost as fast as they landed. Cardi fired back hard on X and basically told Nicki to either keep up or hush up. Key line:

'Nothing more annoying than a bored [expletive]... You must've missed me, huh crazy?? Now kiss my feet.'

Cardi kept going, asking why Nicki keeps bringing up her album and insisting the sales chatter isn’t the drag Nicki thinks it is. She also took aim at longevity vs. performance: if you’ve been in the game 16 years, compare yourself to your peers from that era — and, in Cardi’s words, you can’t, because you’re doing lower than all of them.

How we got here (the quick version)

• 2017: Nicki drops the line 'Silly rap beefs just get me more checks' on Katy Perry’s 'Swish Swish' and name-drops Offset in the same verse, which fans took as a little smoke signal. Around the same time, Cardi vents in interviews about how fame forces you to smile through people being fake — including idols turning into rivals. Publicly, though, both women played nice: Cardi called Nicki a legend, and Nicki congratulated Cardi when 'Bodak Yellow' hit No. 1.
• Late 2017: The 'MotorSport' puzzle. That Migos track with both Nicki and Cardi set off a mini forest fire of inside baseball. Cardi said Quavo invited her. Nicki said she pushed Migos to include Cardi. And there were reportedly multiple versions of Nicki’s verse. Not exactly a smooth rollout.
• May 2018: A brief truce at the Met Gala. They were photographed chatting, and for five minutes it looked fine.
• September 2018: New York Fashion Week explodes. Cardi, convinced Nicki questioned her parenting and tried to block collabs, lunged at her in a confrontation caught on camera. Nicki stayed behind security, yelling but not swinging, and later said on her show that there are lines you don’t cross.

'You put your hands on certain people you gon die. Period.'

Since then, it’s been a simmer — stray bars, shady likes, subtweets — until the album drop poured gasoline on it again.

The money question

Public drama aside, both of them are wildly successful — but one has a cleaner lead on paper. Recent estimates put Nicki Minaj around $150 million. She’s said for years she runs her business with a tight grip, right down to the strategy calls, and the receipts back it up.

Cardi B isn’t exactly counting couch change. Depending on the outlet, she lands anywhere from $80 million (Celebrity Net Worth) to roughly $101 million (CEO Today). Either way, she’s built a serious empire off just a handful of projects and a lot of hits.

Where this leaves the feud

We’re back in familiar territory: chart talk, sales talk, and a lot of online sparring. The inside baseball stuff — deleted posts, version changes on collabs, who invited whom — is part of why this rivalry never really cools off. And with a fresh album and fresh jabs, don’t expect it to anytime soon.