Nicki Minaj isn’t letting anyone play with her name. After voicing her frustration with the NFL for overlooking Lil Wayne for the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performer in favor of Kendrick Lamar, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith criticized her history of feuding while he defended Jay-Z.

“Who else you gonna get in a beef with. Lil Kim, Mariah Carey, Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato. Every time we turn around it’s something, Nicki,” the sports commentator began on the Stephen A. Smith Show Thursday (Sept. 12). “You disagree with the decision, you disagree with the decision. You got to talk about [Jay-Z] like that? And why are we talking about Jay-Z like he’s some sort of sellout or something?”

The First Take host continued: “You know how hard it is for a Black man to pull off what Jay-Z has pulled off in terms of making sure Black folks get that kinda center stage to promote their brand and build their profile. How unappreciative can you be? It ain’t about you as an individual — it’s about all of us as Black people. And that brother Jay-Z has been front and center pushing envelopes.”

Minaj didn’t waste time getting back on the offensive, sharing harsh words with Smith on X Thursday, when she essentially called him a sellout.

“Oh look yall another paid laughy taffy alien who only comes off his knees to turn around & back dat azz up. LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Stephen, we don’t care. Ima tell u right now. We don’t care. If I say more it’ll be your fault. Sit down ugly,” she replied.

The rapper then appeared to sarcastically mix Smith up with his First Take partner Shannon Sharpe, who accidentally went on Instagram Live while getting intimate earlier this week. She also clowned Smith’s receding hairline.

“Stephen wasn’t you just moanin & groanin on live in your bedroom ? LMFAOOOO. And since we here in women’s business…ladies; when should men just shave their full head,” she added, insult to injury. “Should it take its normal course like SAS Sassy a– or should he look into lace fronts?”

Lamar was announced as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performer Sept. 8, and Lil Wayne publicly spoke out about the NFL’s decision early Friday (Sept. 13), admitting that it “hurt” him to not be selected.

“It hurt a whole lot. I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown. And for automatically mentally putting myself in that position like somebody told me that was my position,” he told fans in a video posted to Instagram. “So I blame myself for that. But I thought that was nothing better than that spot and that stage and that platform in my city, so it hurt.”

Sean “Diddy” Combs is seeking to overturn a $100 million sexual assault judgment won against him by a Michigan inmate earlier this week, claiming he was never served with the “frivolous” lawsuit.

In an emergency motion filed Thursday, attorneys for the embattled rapper said he had learned about Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith’s lawsuit and massive judgment from media coverage – and that the case would have been easily dismissed if Combs had been given a fair chance to respond.

“This is a frivolous lawsuit against a prominent businessman, based on obvious fabrications, filed by a convicted rapist and serial litigant with an overactive imagination and a thirst for fame,” Combs’ lawyers write.

The huge award, issued by a Michigan state judge on Monday, was what’s known as a default judgment — a kind of legal award granted when an accused party doesn’t respond to a legal action. Court records show that attorneys for Combs never participated in the case nor filed any kind of response.

But in Thursday’s filings, they say that’s because they were never been legally served with the allegations – a crucial first step in any American lawsuit: “Had Mr. Combs been notified in a timely manner of these outrageous claims, he would have defended himself, as he is prepared to do now. But he did not have that opportunity.”

At a hearing last month, the judge overseeing the case said Cardello-Smith had supplied sufficient proof that he properly served Combs via certified mail, which requires confirmation of receipt. But in Thursday’s response, Combs lawyers say that the letter was not sent to the rapper’s primary residence and it had not actually been signed by him personally.

“Accordingly, the default judgment must be set aside,” lawyers for Diddy write.

Once one of the most powerful men in the music industry, Diddy has been hit with at least eight civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse over the past year, including claims by ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura that were later followed by a video showing him assaulting her. The hip-hop mogul is also facing an apparent federal criminal investigation after authorities raided his homes in March.

Cardello-Smith sued Combs in June, claiming the rapper had spiked his drink and sexually assaulted him at a party in 1997. But in Thursday’s filings, the rapper’s lawyers said the inmate’s allegations are “objectively unbelievable” and that “no lawsuit could be more frivolous.”

“Plaintiff alleges that he was sexually assaulted in 1997, but he cannot keep his story straight as to where this supposedly occurred,” Combs lawyers write. “Aside from the purported assault, plaintiff alleges a fantastical conspiracy between Mr. Combs … and numerous high-ranking Wayne County judicial and law enforcement officials.”

As attorneys for Diddy repeatedly pointed out in their filings, Cardello-Smith, 51, is serving multiple, decades-long sentences for a variety of crimes, including first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of kidnapping. The earliest he can be released from prison is 2036.

The lawsuit against Combs is not the first civil action Cardello-Smith has filed from behind bars. Last year, he sued a Detroit-area Catholic archdiocese, alleging he had been sexually abused by a priest and others between 1979 and 1993. The case was dismissed last month by state appeals court, which ruled that Cardello-Smith’s allegations were barred by the statute of limitations.

In their response Thursday, lawyers for Diddy said that same defense would also apply to the current lawsuit: “As ridiculous as the allegations are, if every word of the complaint were true, the action would still be completely nonviable because the statute of limitation on the claims asserted expired almost 17 years before the case was filed.”

John Legend has long been open about his political views, as well as his opposition to Donald Trump. But after the presidential debate on Sept. 10 — during which the Republican candidate regurgitated rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio — it got personal for the EGOT winner.

In a video posted to his Instagram account Thursday (Sept. 12), two days after Trump’s first debate with Kamala Harris, Legend — who is from Springfield — shared his thoughts on the easily debunked claims about his hometown’s immigrant community. “Springfield has had a large influx of Haitian immigrants who’ve come to our city,” he explained. “Now, our city had been shrinking for decades. We didn’t have enough jobs, we didn’t have enough opportunities.”

“Of late, during the Biden administration, there’ve been more jobs that opened up — more manufacturing jobs, more plants, factories — that needed employees and were ready to hire people,” the “All of Me” singer continued. “During the same time, there had been upheaval and turmoil in Haiti. Our demand in Springfield for additional labor met up with the supply of additional Haitian immigrants.”

After outlining how the federal government assisted the Haitian population in legally moving to the United States, Legend compared the situation to other international communities — Polish, Irish, Italian, German, Jewish and Jamaican, to name a few — who’ve also immigrated over the years in pursuit of the American dream. “All of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want for our ancestors,” he said into the camera.

“Nobody’s eating cats,” he added. “Nobody’s eating dogs. We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy, safe environment. Don’t spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them.”

The post comes as Springfield finds itself thrust into the center of the 2024 presidential race thanks to the false pet-eating rumor, which started with a post in a local Facebook group that alleged a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had found their missing cat hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home. With anti-immigration sentiment being a core tenet of Trump’s platform, his campaign was quick to use the rumors as fuel for his third White House bid, as conservative outlets spread the false story online.

“There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” a spokesperson for Springfield recently told CNN, while Mayor Rob Rue said Thursday that the hoax is “hurting our citizens and hurting our community.”

The Springfield controversy is just the latest topic Legend has spoken about amid the 2024 presidential race, with the musician being one of the earliest and most outspoken supporters of President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris’ campaigns this year. In a recent interview with BBC Newsnight, for instance, he opened up about the importance of reproductive healthcare — another hot-button issue in this year’s race — and detailed how it played a crucial role in his family in 2020.

“We were losing a pregnancy we wanted, a baby we wanted — we were losing him,” Legend recalled of Chrissy Teigen’s pregnancy loss four years prior. “We had to have abortion care to resolve that, to make sure that Chrissy didn’t die. She was bleeding profusely, and her life needed to be saved. We had to have abortion care to do that.”

Watch Legend call for peace in Springfield, Ohio, and share his thoughts on healthcare for women below.

Janet Jackson is opening up about another wardrobe malfunction. In an interview with British Vogue in which the 58-year-old pop icon flipped through a look book of some of her most iconic costumes, Jackson stopped on one of the military-inspired looks from her 1989 Rhythm Nation album.

“Funny story. I was performing for the Queen of England, and we were doing Rhythm Nation,” Jackson said of the late British monarch who died at age 96 in Sept. 2022. “Sure enough, as soon as I squatted, my pants split right up my booty crack.” Jackson said she “couldn’t believe” her terrible luck before realizing it was worse than she imagined.

“Then I started feeling air back there, so I knew it had really happened,” she said, revealing her quick-thinking fix for the sartorial nightmare. “I never turned my back to her, which, some of the choreography, I was supposed to. I just faced forward.”

The story from the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is extra poignant given the other wardrobe malfunction she is most commonly associated with. As you may recall, back in 2004 Jackson performed with Justin Timberlake at that year’s Super Bowl halftime show in Houston, during which JT famously ripped off a piece of Jackson’s costume, exposing her nipple for 9/16th of a second.

The moment that was probed in a 2021 New York Times Presents documentary led to a raft of complaints from viewers, as well as fines and significant professional implications for Jackson. For years, many fans and pundits noted that Timberlake appeared to emerge from the pre-social media viral moment with little or no backlash, while Jackson’s career was dealt a blow from the incident after her videos were pulled from Viacom properties including MTV, VH1 and CBS and she was uninvited to that year’s Grammy Awards.

The Super Bowl slip dubbed “Nipple-gate” also introduced the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” into common parlance and, in the wake of the #FreeBritney movement that blew up in 2019, led to Timberlake issuing public apologies to both Jackson and his ex Spears for the way he’d treated them.

“I’ve seen the messages, tags, comments, and concerns and I want to respond,” Timberlake said at the time after the 2021 Framing Britney Spears documentary portrayed the “Cry Me a River” singer as acting callously following his split with Britney in 2002. “I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right. I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism. I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.”

Jackson is gearing up to launch her Las Vegas residency with back-to-back performances on Dec. 30 and New Year’s Eve at Resorts World Las Vegas.

Watch Jackson describe her royal de-pantsing below.