Y’all know Nicki Minaj is quick to call out racism or sexism when she’s the victim of it. She consistently speaks about the way she’s treated in the industry as a woman. She called out MTV and their nomination of videos that didn’t feature diverse body types and now, she’s coming for shoe designer Giuseppe Zanotti.
Nicki tweeted this earlier today.
If you’re confused about what Nicki is referring to, allow one of her fans to enlighten us. Giuseppe has not 1, 5, or even 10 shoes named after her. He has 23. Twenty-three. A fan took some snapshots from the internet.
It’s a good thing he collected the receipts because not even an hour after Nicki’s first tweet, #GiuseppeWhatsGood started trending worldwide. It was number one in the U.K, number two in Switzerland and then four in Brazil.
Within an hour, Giuseppe removed all shoes named after Nicki from his website.
Nicki continued, speaking up against those who tried to dissuade her from speaking out publicly.
Again, she reiterated that it’s not about the money. In fact, she was willing to donate the proceeds to charity.
Listen, whether you agree with the method or not, she absolutely has a point. And if you ask me, the means seem necessary since they didn’t even have the decency to answer the phone. What was she supposed to do? Send an email that would have ended up in the trash folder? No, she rallied the people around a conversation that needs to happen not only with Nicki Minaj but with several women in our country and world. You can’t use a woman’s brand and persona to make money for your company and then prevent her from benefitting as well. It’s not right and it’s not okay. Most importantly, it seems that the conversation resulted in change. In the type of times we’re living in, when we feel helpless against the frequent and consistent injustices going on in our government, we need to feel like we can use our voice and power to bring equality and fairness in any arena. And while Nicki Minaj has money to blow and has “made it” many times over, her celebrity doesn’t make her exempt from that.
Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.” You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter @VDubShrug.
