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Nicki Minaj was honored with the “Game-Changer” award Thursday night at the inaugural Billboard Women In Music ceremony and chose to use her platform to pay homage to Juice WRLD who died at 21 years-old of a seizure on Sunday (Dec. 8). Nicki, who toured with the late rapper, referred to him as a “kindred spirit.”
She began her speech by thanking Billboard for being the only event to get her “dressed” in the last month before then dedicating most of her speech to the late rapper. Nicki mentioned during their tour they spoke in great detail.
“While we walked to the stage, he held my hand and told me to stay calm and to pray,” she recalled. “He said he had been trying to do just that. I was so shocked to hear him, of all people, tell me that, but right there in that moment with him telling me that, I actually did feel calm.”
Nicki encouraged the audience to be more empathetic for people dealing with mental health issues. And, she encouraged the audience to take a deeper look into the reasons why someone may turn to drugs to sooth their problems.
“Drugs isn’t the problem — it’s the way we fix our problem. It’s so important that we don’t pass judgement so people don’t feel ashamed to speak up and ask for help. It’s so important we talk about mental health. Because people are dying because they don’t want to express how miserable they are and how much they’re suffering. And, they’d rather medicate themselves.”
The emotional rapper then thanked Alanis Morsette, the Barbz and her husband Kenneth Petty.
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Nicki Minaj Encourages Mental Health Awareness: ‘It’s Important We Don’t Pass Judgement’ was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
