In a new documentary, Nicki Minaj reveals just how far she had to go to live day-to-day before she made it to stardom. In MTV’s My Time Again, Minaj tells how she had to steal everything from bread to panties to survive.
“When I was a waitress at Red Lobster, I had to steal bread to eat from work,” said Minaj. “I’d stuff some biscuits into my apron, then I’d hide in a bathroom stall and stuff them into my face as fast as I could. They ended up firing me after a while. Not for the bread thing, though. Actually, that’s a pretty common thing for waitresses at most restaurants to do. They actually fired me because I was a rude bitch to customers. I lost about 15 jobs that way, no shit.”
Minaj, who now has her own line of branded clothing at K-Marts across the country, says the thinks it’s ‘super ironic’ that all these years later her face would be plastered throughout the stores.
“It’s funny how my life has turned around. I used to shoplift all my clothes from K-Mart, and now I have my own clothing line there. My face is all over the stores, but this time it’s on posters out front, not just on little Polaroids and blurry camera footage in the security office out back. I tell you, though, I had to swipe them. A girl goes through a hell of a lot of clothes trying to figure out the best way to look like you’re not wearing any clothes.”
Minaj, whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj, says that although she may have had to resort to a life of crime growing up, she hopes that her fans don’t make the same mistakes.
“Of course I would never encourage any of my young fans to follow in my footsteps. On the other hand, my older fans can do whatever they want. But if you’re gonna shoplift, make sure you don’t get caught!”
Later, Minaj explains to the documentary crew about how she turned her life around before it was too late.
“I realized I didn’t want to be an alcoholic like my dad, wearing cheap lingerie or whatever. I needed to get serious about my career. That’s when I got on MySpace. Nothing says ‘serious about your career’ like a MySpace Music page. I guess it paid off, though. I got signed, I got off the streets. I didn’t have to sell my poon for money like a lot of friends I had growing up. Plus, I got to stop stuffing my face with stolen bread. Life just kind of fell into place after that.”
The documentary premiers on MTV January 18th at 10 PM, and is said to be an extremely intimate look into the superstar’s life.