One-time star CNN anchor Don Lemon is in a wild war of words with Nicki Minaj after the rapper used a gay slur while calling for him to be imprisoned for livestreaming anti-ICE protesters as they stormed a Minnesota church service.
Minaj called the openly gay ex-CNN anchor “DON ‘C—K SUCKING LEMON” in an X tirade Monday, labeling him “DISGUSTING” for livestreaming the raid that interrupted a Sunday service.
“HOW DARE YOU? I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!! HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION. LOCK HIM UP!!!!!” the “Anaconda” rapper posted along with an image of Chucky the doll from the horror movie franchise.
Lemon hit back on TikTok, calling Minaj “unhinged” and “homophobic” and suggesting she was being hypocritical given her own immigration history.
“Nicki Minaj, stop talking about s–t for which you know nothing about. You’re out of your depth, by the way, and you are a homophobic bigot,” Lemon said.
Lemon also said that Minaj — who is from Trinidad and Tobago and revealed in 2024 that she is not a US citizen — should be “deported under Donald Trump’s rules.”
“You don’t care about African Americans and you’re not an African American,” he shot back.
He then took aim at Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, for being a registered sex offender and her brother, Jelani Maraj, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping his stepdaughter.
“Nicki Minaj, get a life. Stop being a ‘pick me.’ You should have put a pick-me doll on that damn tweet instead of a Chucky doll, because you are nothing but a pick me. And I pick. I choose not to pick you. And so should black people, and so should gay people. [They] shouldn’t buy your music. Clock that,” he said.
Minaj, 43, later said she “purposely” made the post about Lemon, 59, so abrasive because “that would be the only way to get the c—k suckas to post about it.”
“They would’ve all collectively ignored the despicable behavior displayed by Lemon head,” she posted, promising “they’re about to get angrier.”
Lemon received widespread criticism for livestreaming the raucous church takeover by dozens of protesters — and then hiding behind the First Amendment as a journalist despite a video he filmed of himself admitting he knew of the anti-ICE mob’s plans in advance.
The Department of Justice warned Lemon he’d been put on notice over allegations and said they are investigating the demonstration.
“A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service,” Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, chided Lemon on X.
“You are on notice!” she wrote, noting in a follow-up post that the FBI has been “activated” and accusing the protesters of “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.”
The protesters descended on the church looking for the resident pastor, David Easterwood, whom they accused of moonlighting as the acting local field office director for ICE.
The pastor’s personal information appears to match that of the David Easterwood identified in court filings as the acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office, according to ABC News.
