Nicki Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty’s alleged rape accuser speaks out: ‘I’m tired of being afraid’
Jennifer Hough, the woman who is suing Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, for harassment and intimidation is finally speaking out.
In her first on-camera interview, Hough talked to the ladies of The Real about the lawsuit she filed against the couple in which she accuses them of harassment and intimidation, among other charges.
“I’m tired of being afraid. I feel like the actions that were taken in regards to this whole situation have put me in a different type of fear, at my age now and it was wrong,” Hough told Garcelle Beauvais and Adrienne Houghton during Wednesday’s episode. “And I don’t want to be afraid anymore. So, the only way not to be afraid is to continue to speak up.”
In 1994 when Hough was 16, she reported that Petty raped her at knifepoint. Petty, who was also 16 at the time, was charged with first-degree rape and initially denied the accusations, before pleading guilty to attempted rape.
According to the NYPD Sex Offender Unit database, the offense was filed as “sexual intercourse” and noted that a “knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)” was used in the crime.
Petty served four years in New York State Prison for the incident before he was released, TMZ reported in 2018.
In August, Hough filed a lawsuit against Petty and Minaj, whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj, claiming in the complaint that she has endured years of harassment from the couple to silence her.
“I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me to, like, really fight,” Hough told the hosts with tears in her eyes. “I just held on to my pants, and he’d hold my arms down. He squeezed the sides of my stomach so hard, and so I’d let go, and as soon as I let go, he’d grab my pants.”
“We were never in a relationship,” Hough added. “We never talked on the phone. We never hung out together. I just knew him from the neighborhood.”
During the sit-down, Hough also recalled a moment when Minaj allegedly reached out to her personally in March 2020.
“She called me, and she said that she got word that I was willing to help them out in a situation,” Hough alleged. “I didn’t understand what she was referring to. She offered to fly me and my family to LA. I turned it down. And I told her, woman to woman, this really happened. And I hadn’t spoken to her since.”
Petty was also convicted of first-degree manslaughter and served another seven years for shooting a man, according to TMZ. He reportedly was released in 2013.
