- Nicki Minaj said Kanye West would not help her with a fashion line because of Kim Kardashian.
- She said she reached out to him following her Fendi collaboration, but he turned her down.
- "I wanted to come to him first," she said on Joe Budden's podcast.
On a Joe Budden podcast episode released on Wednesday, Nicki Minaj said Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, would not partner with her on a fashion line because of Kim Kardashian.
She shared that she reached out to Ye following her successful Fendi collaboration.
"I told Kanye about that. I was like 'Hey look, I'm about to do something and I just wanted to make sure I spoke to you first," she said. She told Budden she did so "because I had such respect for him."
Minaj clarified that the conversation did not take place recently: "It wasn't during this time, it was a while ago."
"He was like, my wife probably wouldn't love that idea because I should be giving that to my wife. If I was doing the female version of the Yeezys or whatever it should probably go to my wife," she continued.
"I understood because how you gon' tell somebody about they husband or wife chile," she said in her signature exaggerated drawl. "I said okay but I wanted to come to him first."
Minaj also pointed out that Ye had been "very vocal" in the past about being excluded from the fashion industry as a Black man, suggesting that she'd expect him to want to help her, a Black female rapper, do the same.
"I come to you as a Black man that I look up to. I'm doing that because you inspired me," she said.
Minaj continued: "When I did ask to just put it on his radar, he said how he thought his wife would feel about it. And we didn't speak much more about it."
However, Minaj did say she couldn't confirm whether or not what Ye said to her about Kardashian not liking the idea was true.
"Now, I'm not saying that she said that," Minaj told Budden. "She wasn't there, so I want to make it clear."
Listen to Minaj's full conversation with Budden below.