Trevor Noah’s Grammys joke about Nicki Minaj sparks cheers, headlines, and fresh political blowback

LOS ANGELES - Feb. 2, 2026 - In his opening monologue of the 2026 Grammy Awards, host Trevor Noah received thundering applause when he named Nicki Minaj as a no-show and attributed it to her recent pro-Donald Trump rhetoric.

At Crypto.com Arena, Noah informed the audience that Minaj was not in the building because she was still at the White House with Donald Trump and added to the statement an extended impression supposed to mimic Trump-like bravado.

The moment landed in the room. People reported the audience laughing and applauding, with Chrissy Teigen appearing to give the joke a thumbs-up.

The punchline was also not innocent of mining an even greater news cycle. The two magazines, People and Entertainment Weekly, presented the bit as part of the reaction to Minaj receiving significant attention in the media and on social media due to her recent statements of apparent support of Trump.

And the politicking did not end there, as the Associated press reported that the monologue given by Noah subsequently directly attracted the attention of

Trump who then posted furiously about the set and threatened lawsuits.

The live stream of the Grammy awards took place in Los Angeles on CBS and lasted on Paramount +, the opening minutes of which Noah quickly turned out to be one of the most discussed videos of the night.

Nicki Minaj also responded to Trevor Noah online, who with his opening monologue at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards joked about the rapper being absent and aligning herself with Donald Trump recently.

By Monday Minaj replied on X in a series of posts, one of which, making allegations that were not substantiated, said Noah is in a secret same-sex relationship and is refusing to come out. Jay-Z was also mentioned in the posts and had pictures with him and Beyoncé.

The remarks of Minaj were criticized as addressing sexuality and reminiscent to centuries-old stigmatization of LGBTQ+ individuals, as reported on the exchange. The clip rapidly went viral and was further escalated by the crowd response to the joking by Noah, which was starting to go viral on its own, as well as camera additional shots of people present, such as Chrissy Teigen.

The rebuttal by the rapper comes at a time when there is increased focus on her praises to Donald Trump that she offered in the past few days- an issue that has become a constant point of discussion on the Grammy awards in the wake of the award.