Nicki Minaj is doubling-down on her use of homophobic slurs to refer to independent journalist Don Lemon. After writing “DON ‘C—K SUCKIN’ LEMON IS DISGUSTING,” in a post on X on Sunday (Jan. 18) in an attack on the former CNN anchor following his livestream from Cities Church in St. Paul, where demonstrators interrupted a weekend service to protest the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Minaj leaned even harder into the slur on Monday (Jan. 19).

“LOL!!! And I purposely wrote it that way b/c I knew 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,” Minaj wrote, again deploying an image of the horror character Chucky from Child’s Play hoisting a middle finger.

“I’m glad they’re angry. They’re about to get angrier,” Minaj, 43, added.

In her original all-caps screed, Minaj wrote, “HOW DARE YOU? I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!! HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION. LOCK HIM UP!!!!!”

According to People, David Easterwood, listed as the pastor on the Cities Church website, is also identified as the acting director of ICE’s Saint Paul field office. Lemon’s report came amid the Trump administration’s massive immigration surge into the Twin Cities, during which ICE officer Jonathan Ross killed American citizen and mother of three Renee Nicole Good, 37, on Jan. 7, shooting her three times at point-blank range as Good appeared to be driving away from an ICE enforcement action.

Lemon, who is openly gay and married to real estate agent Tim Malone, hit back at Minaj’s original homophobic attack in a statement to TMZ, saying, “I’m not surprised Nicki Minaj does not understand journalism and is weighing in on matters that are above her capacity. However, the more appropriate image for her post is a ‘Pick Me’ Doll.”

Lemon also told TMZ Live that the rapper needs to “sit the f–k down” and “grow some brains,” calling her a “homophobic, bigoted ignorant woman.”

The latest controversy came after Minaj faced backlash for appearing on stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix in December alongside Erika Kirk, the widow of late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, during which she heaped praise on Donald Trump and JD Vance as “role models” for young men. Just weeks later, more than 60,000 people signed an online petition on Change.org calling for Minaj’s deportation to her native Trinidad; Minaj moved to the U.S. when she was five-years-old and said in a 2024 livestream that she still was not a U.S. citizen.

Following Minaj’s attacks on Lemon, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon lashed out at the journalist, calling Lemon’s coverage, “pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service,” adding “you are on notice!” and implying that Lemon had organized the protest, despite him saying he was just there to document it.

Lemon, who noted in a Fox News Digital interview on Monday that he was “cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist,” said that there were other reporters there and that in the wake of Minaj’s tirade he was subject to a “barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs” directed at him by Trump’s MAGA supporters, which he said was amplified by members of the right-wing press. The journalist suggested that the time and energy devoted to “manufacturing outrage” over his report might better be employed to investigate Good’s killing, “the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place. I stand by my reporting.”

Last week, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned over the Trump Justice Department’s push to investigate Good’s widow, as well as the department’s foot-dragging on an investigation into shooter Ross. Following Good’s killing, Dhillon reportedly told her staff that she would not consider opening an investigation into whether Ross violated federal law, with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche adding in a statement that there is “currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into the ICE agent.