Nicki Minaj jailed for six hours after being arrested in the Netherlands
American rapper Nicki Minaj on Saturday, May 25, cancelled a show in Manchester, England, after she said she was held by police at Amsterdam Schiphol airport on allegations of possession of soft drugs.
“Despite Nicki’s best efforts to explore every possible avenue to make tonight’s show happen, the events of today have made it impossible,” the Co-op Live venue in Manchester said in a post on X.
Minaj, 41, was detained hours before the show had been scheduled to start.
Dutch military police confirmed a 41-year-old American woman had been held for possession of soft drugs on Saturday, adding it was prohibited to take such substances out of the Netherlands.
Police did not identify the suspect, but in a later post on social media platform, X said the woman had been fined and released around 1945 GMT.
That was 45 minutes after Minaj had been due to begin performing at the Manchester Co-op Live.
The singer had earlier posted a video on X in which a Schiphol employee apparently told her that police wanted to “search all her luggage”.
Another video on her social media showed a police officer telling her she was “carrying drugs”. In the video Minaj denies that.
“Now they said they found weed & that another group of ppl have to come here to weigh the pre-rolls,” she said in a following post.
The former “American Idol” judge played a show in Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome on Thursday, May 23, and is due to return there for another show on June 2.
Fans expressed devastation and frustration after Nicki’s concert in Manchester was cancelled.
One fan said she was upset that the concert venue, Co-op Live, did not let them know about the change of plans sooner and said they could have communicated better. Another fan said he got the cancellation only after he had bought a drink. “It’s like, cost of living crisis,” he said.
Another fan said, “I think the disappointment is also coming from the fact that they let us in. They gave us the hope that actually was not there. And I feel like Co-Op should have actually communicated this a bit better.”
Another fan added, “Absolutely devastated. We’ve come here, got ready, spent all day getting ready to see this happen. I mean, it’s just disappointing, got our hopes up, spent the money and then we get told at the very last minute that she’s not going to show up.”