Nicki Minaj dropped from harassment lawsuit filed by husband’s attempted rape victim

Minaj’s lawyers call legal action brought by Hough ‘frivolous’

(Getty Images for Marc Jacobs)

Nicki Minaj has been dropped from a lawsuit accusing her and her husband, Kenneth Petty, of harassment.

Jennifer Hough, the woman whom Petty was convicted of attempting to rape in 1994, voluntarily dismissed her claims against Minaj “without prejudice”, according to court documents seen by Pitchfork. Petty is still named as a defendant.

Hough filed her complaint against the couple in August last year, alleging a pattern of harassment by both Petty and Minaj. She accused them of reaching out to her directly, offering her large amounts of money, and sending people to her house unannounced, leading her to move out of her home in August 2020.

In March 2020, Petty was charged with failing to register as a sex offender in California after moving from New York to the West Coast in 2019. He reportedly took a plea deal in August 2021, where he pleaded guilty to one count of failing to register as a sex offender.

According to TMZ, Minaj’s lawyer, Judd Burstein has accused Hough and her lawyers of pursuing the lawsuit for monetary gain.

“In my view, your conduct in pursuing this case against Nicki represents the worst of our legal system: bottom-feeding lawyers who pursue frivolous actions against a celebrity assuming that they will be paid off if they throw enough dirt,” he said in an email to Hough’s lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn.

“What they tried to do to Nicki was disgraceful,” Burstein told Vulture. “They finally realised that they had to surrender without Nicki paying a penny. And now, Nicki and I are going to make them pay for this in the courts.”

The Independent has contacted Minaj’s representative for comment.