Why Nicki Minaj is setting up her husband to fight an ex-NFL star

A hateful social media exchange broke out between rapper Nicki Minaj and former NFL star Dez Bryant on Sunday, devolving into the Grammy-nominated artist offering him $10 million to fight her husband, Kenneth Petty.

It started when Dallas Cowboys player Micah Parsons requested a trade from the team last week, amid ongoing, tense contract negotiations. Per CBS Sports, Parsons didn’t care for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanting to meet with him and not his agent.

Jones then brought up Jay-Z, the founder of Roc Nation Sports, which represented Bryant, a former wide receiver for the Cowboys and other teams, during his 2015 contract negotiation. Jones alleged that the “Big Pimpin'” star wouldn’t return his calls and said his client would attend meetings that he did not, which both Jay-Z and Bryant have denied; in fact, they argued that their calls were the ones that went unanswered.

Enter Minaj, who has publicly feuded with Jay-Z for months. She’s alleged that his former company, streaming music service Tidal, owes her serious money, and that the mogul himself is trying to hurt her career.

When Bryant warned Jones that he didn’t think it was “smart” to bring up his name, but they could have “story time” if he wanted, Minaj replied.

“How about we play a game? Every time you do a ‘Jerry Jones’ or ‘NFL’ story time, I’ll do a ‘story time’ of my own,” the “Barbie World” rapper wrote on X.

The back-and-forth continued after Bryant said he wanted to play.

At first Bryant said he was “a huge fan,” but the tone of the posts soon changed.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

She brought up that he had been arrested in 2012 on a charge of misdemeanor domestic violence against his mother, which he said he didn’t do. The charges were later dismissed.

Then Bryant mentioned that Minaj’s husband since 2019 is a registered sex offender. Petty was convicted of attempted rape in 1995 and served time; however, he failed to register when he moved to California with Minaj in 2019 and was sentenced to three years of probation and one year of house arrest for the crime in 2022. He later faced legal repercussions for threatening rapper Offset.

“I’m so happy you brought this up,” Minaj responded to Bryant. “I’ll give you 10 million in cash if you’d come & fight him since you BEAT UR OWN MOM.”

Bryant apologized Monday, saying, “I let the devil win that time.”

EW has reached out to reps for Minaj and Jay-Z.