Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty got married in 2019

Emy LaCroix is a contributing writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2022. She previously worked as the deputy editor of Life & Style, In Touch, and Closer Weekly.PEOPLE EDITORIAL GUIDELINES  Updated on January 29, 2024 12:42PM EST

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Nicki Minaj met her now-husband Kenneth “Zoo” Petty when she was just a teenager.

The pair first crossed paths when they were students at the same high school. The two lost touch for years before reconnecting in 2018, leading to a whirlwind romance. Minaj and Petty wed in 2019 and welcomed a son in 2020.

“He understands her as a person,” Minaj’s friend and musician Derrick Milano told PEOPLE in October 2019. “I think that’s what the connection really is with them — it’s that he really knows her. It’s a different type of connection. He’s not famous, he doesn’t want to be on Instagram. Like, that’s not his M.O. (modus operandi). He’s really focused on her.”

Despite their low-key relationship, Petty’s legal troubles have made headlines in recent years. He is a level two registered sex offender in New York and spent several years in jail for both attempted rape in the first degree and first-degree manslaughter.

So who is Nicki Minaj’s husband? Here’s everything to know about Kenneth Petty and his relationship with the rapper.

He and Minaj met in high school

NICKI MINAJ INSTAGRAM

Minaj and Petty attended LaGuardia High School in New York City together when they were teenagers living in Queens. They dated briefly at the time, but lost touch over the years before reconnecting in 2018.

Minaj has talked about her early days with Petty in several instances. She mentioned the romance in Chance the Rapper’s 2019 hit “Zanies and Fools.” “I met my husband when I was 17 out in Queens / If you love it, let it go, now I know what that means / While he was up North for a body / I bodied everybody and got known for my body,” she raps on the track.

In January 2019, she shared details about their teen relationship on Twitter. “We were like this about each other since we were very young kids in the hood,” she wrote. “He was on my body before the big ol’ ghetto booty. Before the fame and fortune. Fought my boyfriend cuz I wouldn’t be his girl. He was always a lil brazy. But anyway, timing is everything.”

He and Minaj have been back together since 2018

NICKI MINAJ INSTAGRAM

The duo reunited in 2018 and went public with their romance that December when Minaj shared an Instagram slideshow of the pair. “He want me to be his wife – his MISSIS like SIPPI NOW,” she captioned the photos, which showed them laughing, smiling and cuddling.

Not long after, Petty debuted a massive neck tattoo of Minaj’s birth name, Onika. “Did ya tat hurt zaddy? His first tat – frontin like it didn’t sting #Onika #HeavyOnIt” she captioned a post unveiling his new ink.

He’s a registered sex offender

Petty was convicted of attempted rape in the first degree in April 1995 for an assault the previous year of a then-16-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 18 to 54 months in prison and is listed as a level two registered sex offender in New York state. He served four years behind bars for the assault.

When Minaj’s followers began bringing attention to Petty’s past on her early social media posts with him, she turned comments off and defended her man. “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet,” she wrote. “Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”

Petty was arrested again in March 2020 because he failed to register as a sex offender when he moved in with Minaj in California. He originally pled not guilty and posted $100,000 bail, according to records accessed by PEOPLE, but in September 2021, he pled guilty during a virtual hearing and faced up to 10 years of prison.

In July 2022, Petty was sentenced to a year of house arrest and three years of probation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, plus a $55,000 fine.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter

Petty pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree for killing a man named Lamont Robinson in 2002. He was originally charged with second-degree murder during the 2006 trial, but a plea bargain reduced the charge.

“The defendant, Kenneth Petty, shot the deceased, Lamont Robinson, with a loaded handgun multiple times thereby causing his death,” the complaint obtained by The Blast read.

Petty was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released after serving seven in 2013 and was on supervised release for five years, records accessed by PEOPLE show.

Minaj has repeatedly defended their relationship

Kenneth Petty and Nicki Minaj. JOHNNY NUNEZ/GETTY IMAGES

In July 2019, Minaj spoke out against critics of her relationship on an episode of her Queen Radio podcast. “When a person is with a n— that loved them before they had a dime in their pocket? How do you not understand that? How do you not understand happiness vs clout?” she said, according to E! News.

“How f—ing dare you talk about lowering standards? It’s the truth, money cannot buy me happiness and good sex,” she finished.

Talk show host Wendy Williams found herself in Minaj’s crosshairs when she brought up Petty’s prior issues with the law in November 2019. “Now, he served seven years in prison and he’s also a sex offender,” Williams said on her show. “So that means that he — is a manslaughter a killer? Okay, so he’s a killer and a sex offender. Well Nicki, congratulations.”

“Every time you mention him you feel the need to bring these things up,” Minaj hit back on Queen Radio. She continued, “I didn’t know that in our society, you have to be plagued by your past. I didn’t know that people can’t turn over a new leaf. I didn’t know that your viciousness and evilness was this deep-rooted, this deep-seeded.”

In January 2024, Minaj and Petty made headlines again after fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion allegedly referenced Petty’s status as a level 2 sex offender on her track “Hiss.” (Minaj and Megan have had an alleged falling out since collaborating on “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019.)

In the song, Megan raps, “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law / I don’t really know what the problem is, but I guarantee y’all don’t want me to start,” referring to the law that requires sex offenders to register with the state. Fans alleged that the mention of Megan’s Law was a direct reference to Petty, who is a level 2 sex offender.

After “Hiss” dropped, Minaj appeared to fire back by going on Instagram Live and repeatedly playing an unreleased snippet of a song that seemingly references how Megan survived being shot in the foot by Torey Lanez in 2020. “Bad bitch she like six foot / I call her Big Foot / The bitch fell off / I said get up on your good foot,” Minaj raps, later saying, “Not three Grammys and can’t find the beat.” (Megan Thee Stallion has won three Grammy Awards.)

He and Minaj got married in October 2019

Minaj first sparked marriage rumors by calling Petty her “husband” in March 2019. “We did get our marriage license,” she later confirmed on her Apple Beats 1 show in June of the same year. “I think I have what I was striving for, just happiness. It was so hard to get to a happy place. Now that I’m there, I don’t want to compromise that for anyone or anything.”

The rapper further added in August 2019 that she would be married in “about 80 days.” “We still had to pick it up and I was traveling, by the time I came back, we had to renew it again,” she said. “From that time, you have 90 days to get married. That was about a week ago, so now I have about 80 days.”

On Oct. 21, 2019, Minaj confirmed she was officially a married woman with an Instagram post. “Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty 10*21*19,” she captioned a video of some “bride” and “groom” swag, also revealing she hyphenated her last name.

Little is known about Minaj and Perry’s wedding, but a source told PEOPLE that Minaj “wanted to keep her wedding low-key.”

“She’s become much more private over the last year, but she is very happy,” the insider added.

Eight months later, while chatting with Lil Wayne on her show, Minaj opened up about married life.

“I didn’t think it would be as refreshing and calming as it is,” she said. “Even if you’re not married, when you have someone that feels like your soulmate or someone who understands you, it just makes you feel like you’re on top of the world.”

He and Minaj share a son

NICKI MINAJ INSTAGRAM

Minaj confirmed she was expecting her first child with Petty in July 2020. “#Preggers 💛,” she captioned an image of her cradling her baby bump. “Love. Marriage. Baby carriage. Overflowing with excitement and gratitude. Thank you all for the well wishes,” she added in another caption,

Their child, whose name still hasn’t been revealed, was born on Sept. 30, 2020, PEOPLE confirmed at the time. Minaj revealed the sex of her little one two weeks later, on Oct. 20, while showing off a congratulatory note from Beyoncé and other celebrities.

“Thank you to Queen B, Kim & Ye, Riccardo Tisci, Winnie, Karol & everyone who sent well wishes during this time. It meant the world to me,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am so grateful and in love with my son. Madly in love,” she added. “My favorite liddo boy in the whole wide world.”

Minaj later shared details of the moment she and her husband realized her water broke. “I was butt naked,” she wrote on Twitter. “Just got out the shower and I asked him to rub my back. As soon as I started scooting over to him in the bed I just felt the water start coming out. I was weirdly calm and I quietly said ‘omg, I’m about to be in labor.’ He was very scared and I was laughing at him.”

He’s made cameos in Minaj’s music videos

NICKI MINAJ INSTAGRAM

Petty broke into the music business by appearing in two music videos with his wife. The first was for her 2019 hit “MEGATRON,” and the second was “Hot Girl Summer,” Minaj’s 2019 collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion.

Minaj has also faced legal trouble relating to her husband

Minaj became involved with Petty’s legal issues when his alleged rape victim, Jennifer Hough, filed a harassment lawsuit against the rapper and her husband. The August 2021 complaint claimed Minaj and Petty tried to use their money, power and fame to threaten her into walking back her rape accusations. She claimed Minaj called her personally to request Hough change her story and later offered her $20,000 to sign a prepared statement that recanted her accusations.

“As a direct result of the actions of Defendant Minaj and Defendant Petty, Plaintiff has been traumatized her entire life,” the lawsuit read. “Plaintiff has never felt safe since being raped by Defendant.”

The suit against Minaj was later dropped in January 2022, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE, and Minaj plans to seek to recoup the money lost in legal fees, according to her lawyer, Judd Bernstein.

“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 up enough dirt,” Bernstein wrote in an email to Hough’s lawyer obtained by PEOPLE. “It is just the beginning of Nicki’s and my efforts to make you pay for your disgraceful conduct with both money and, if the Court recommends it, disciplinary sanctions.”

For her part, Hough’s lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, assured PEOPLE he was still pursuing action against Minaj’s husband. “The case against Nicki was voluntarily dismissed,” he said. “The case against Kenneth Petty is still ongoing. Stay tuned!”

He violated his probation when he threatened rapper Offset

BROADIMAGE/SHUTTERSTOCK; FRANCIS SPECKER/CBS VIA GETTY IMAGES

In September 2023, Petty threatened Cardi B’s husband, Offset, on social media. He was then sentenced to 120 days of house arrest, according to court documents.