Nicki Minaj: Fauci dismisses artist’s claim about Covid-19 vaccine with ‘a resounding no’

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None of the Covid-19 vaccines in use in the United States cause reproductive issues, Dr Anthony Fauci has said in response to Nicki Minaj’s recent tweet.

The rapper caused controversy on Monday (13 September) after she tweeted the baseless claim that her cousin in Trinidad was not getting vaccinated because his friend took the shot and then allegedly became impotent.

When CNN presenter Jake Tapper asked Dr Fauci whether there is any evidence that Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines pose the health risk Minaj outlined in her controversial tweet, the US’s top epidemiologist said the answer is “a resounding no”.

The “Super Bass” singer, who has nearly 180 million followers on Twitter and Instagram combined, posted several follow-ups to the tweet in question to underscore she was not against getting vaccinated per se.

Responding to various fan accounts, the Trinidadian-born singer said getting the vaccine was “the norm” and that she was certain she’d have to get vaccinated soon enough “to go on tour”.

Within hours of posting, Minaj’s anecdote about her cousin’s friend had spread like wildfire online.

It was criticised by Chris Whitty and Boris Johnson during Tuesday’s (14 September) Covid-19 press conference, with Whitty saying that Minaj should have been “ashamed” of sharing misinformation with her large following.

Minaj responded by posting a bizarre voice note mocking the pair in a British accent, before calling BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg a “dumbo” and Piers Morgan a “stupid piece of s***”.

The tweet about her cousin’s friend came minutes after the Grammy-winning artist said she would be skipping the 2021 Met Gala over its mandatory vaccine requirement.

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“If I get vaccinated it won’t be for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now,” she wrote.