Update: On Tuesday night, Nicki Minaj deleted the fan-made Instagram falsely stating she made 23 different Best Dressed lists. (The post is screenshotted below.)
This story was originally published at 5:45 p.m. on May 2.
On Monday night, dozens of stars walked the red carpet at the 2017 Met Gala in avant-garde looks inspired by the theme, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art Of The In-Between. By Tuesday morning, publications had published their Best Dressed lists.
Nicki Minaj, who looked stunning in her red and black get-up, shared a post from a fan Instagram account listing nearly two dozen outlets that placed Minaj on their esteemed lists. One little problem: the list was totally made up. The comments immediately came pouring in alerting Minaj that she was sharing false information.
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"You should delete this before people try and drag Nicki. 70 percent of these sources didn't list her ):. FACT Check!!!!!" one person commented. "This is a fake list Nicki!!" wrote another. "Nicki, for the love of God, DELETE THIS!"
I decided to fact-check the fact-checkers, and five minutes of googling revealed that Minaj did not, in fact, make the Best Dressed List for any of the big outlets listed, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Allure, Billboard, E! News, USA Today, The Guardian, or Forbes. (I would like to point out that Minaj did in fact snag one illustrious title courtesy of Cosmopolitan: Most Exceptional Repurposed Leotard. She also made Time's "Every Single Look From the 2017 Met Gala Red Carpet" list.) It's okay Nicki! Don't feel bad — we all fall for the wily ways of the internet sometimes. But the story gets more interesting when Rihanna enters the picture...
About an hour after Minaj's post, Rihanna shared her own (accurate) collage of the publications that dubbed her Queen of the Met Ball. And girlfriend had the receipts: she screenshotted tweets from Vogue, Elle, Time, Harper's Bazaar, and Forbes and captioned it "casual." People instantly pitted Rihanna and Minaj, who are long rumoured to have beef, against each other. One person noted on Minaj's Instagram: "Nicki this is embarrassing. You are posting lies on your page. We all know who won it's Rihanna and with authentic receipts too. Stop this or people will never believe anything else that you say again," echoing many other comments.
So now we're all wondering: is Rihanna's Instagram an attempt to shade Minaj? Or is the singer just celebrating her own accolades? RiRi will never tell.
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