When Nicki Minaj talks, the Barbz listen. But a new forensic analysis suggests that thousands of the accounts amplifying her recent political posts aren’t fans at all. They’re bots.
A 24-page report from Cyabra, an Israeli disinformation detection firm, found that 33% of profiles engaging with Minaj’s political content on X between November 11 and December 28, 2025, were fake. The report, first shared with Politico, identified 18,784 inauthentic accounts out of 55,469 reviewed. Those fake profiles generated 31,701 comments and 59,001 total engagements, including likes and replies.
For context, Cyabra says organic online discourse typically sees 7 to 10 percent fake engagement. Minaj’s political posts were running at more than triple that rate.
What the Bots Were Pushing
The amplified content wasn’t random. Minaj has leaned hard into conservative commentary over the past several months, posting about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, opposing gender-affirming care for minors, criticizing Democratic leaders (including California Governor Gavin Newsom), and expressing direct support for former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance. She has called herself “the president’s number one fan” and appeared at a Trump summit where the two created TikTok content together.
According to the Cyabra report, the fake accounts operated with clear coordination. They showed synchronized posting activity, repeated identical keywords, and maintained consistent messaging across comment sections. The report noted that supportive comments from fake profiles were “predominantly brief, repetitive, and low in semantic complexity.”
On December 26 alone, inauthentic profiles accounted for 56% of all comments on Minaj’s political posts, effectively controlling the conversation that day.
The Pushback
Not everyone is buying the findings. Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump media adviser who calls Minaj a “very close friend,” told Politico: “Nicki has never used bot activity to promote herself on social media, because she doesn’t need to.” Conservative influencer Dom Lucre dismissed the report as “conspiracy theories.”
Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy acknowledged that high-volume bot campaigns at the intersection of music culture and geopolitics are unusual: “We don’t really see a lot of high volume, high impact orchestration of bad and fake actors within that intersection.”
Minaj herself has not commented on the report.
Why This Matters
This story isn’t just about Nicki Minaj. It’s about what happens when celebrity influence meets coordinated disinformation, and how hip-hop’s cultural power can be weaponized for political purposes.
When a figure with Minaj’s reach posts political content and a third of the engagement is artificial, it creates a distorted picture of public opinion. Real people scrolling through those replies see what looks like overwhelming agreement. That manufactured consensus shapes how communities think about issues that directly affect them.
Hip-hop has always been political. From Public Enemy to Killer Mike, the culture has a long history of speaking truth to power. But authenticity has always been the currency. Bots don’t have authenticity. And any political message propped up by fake accounts deserves scrutiny, regardless of who’s posting it.
The takeaway: Before you let any celebrity (or their comment section) shape your political views, check the receipts. Real influence doesn’t need 18,000 fake accounts to back it up.
