Kimberly Nicole Foster, a Harvard graduate and brains behind the popular YouTube channel For Harriet, is planning on suing the Barbz, the name given to Nicki Minaj fans, over an alleged harassment campaign.
In a recent interview with the Daily Beast, the content creator talked about how she shrugged off the initial wave of texts sent by Nicki’s fan, but with time, the messages became more threatening and dark – some even threatened rape and kidnap.
This came about after Nicole criticized the award-winning rapper on Twitter.
The tweet read, “Nicki is so clearly a horrible person. Negativity sticks to her like glue. Idk if we’ve ever seen this before.”
Hours after posting the tweet, Nicole started receiving an increasingly troubling slew of DMs, texts, and tweets, with one fervent fan threatening to find out the address of her nieces’ school to use them as ‘collateral damage.’ These individuals knew the existence of her nieces because Nicole previously mentioned on Twitter about heading to their school for an upcoming ‘Grandfriends Day’ event.
Nicole then went on to tell Daily Beast that she was feeling “overwhelmed” by the harassment, which has led her to be “more vigilant’ and avoid stepping out into public. She also said that she’s already filed a report with the local police department and informed the FBI about the situation.
Nicole hasn’t named Nicki in her lawsuit, but she’s been gathering information on the fans who’ve been harassing her.
Not only that, but Nicole said that Nicki herself was seemingly encouraging the Barbz behavior by liking tweets about the threats against her – a few which she’s screenshotted and reposted on her page and also set aside as a reference to the Barbz’ collective harassment towards her.
Additionally, the Daily Beast noted that the Barbz has been piling on another tweet about the rapper/actress’s recent ‘Super Freaky Girl’ single though they seem to be disregarding her past blog post applauding Nicki for her impact on American beauty standards and culture.
“There’s an understanding among the Barbz that the harder they go for her—the more virulent the nastiness—there’s more of an opportunity for her to recognize them,” she said, perhaps referring to other incidents involving Nicki’s fan base harassing other critics of the rapper.
Nicki Minaj is yet to comment on the lawsuit.
