On Friday (March 22), A Los Angeles judge decided that Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, must pay $500,000 to the rapper’s former security guard, Thomas Weidenmuller, for failure to respond to a lawsuit over an alleged backstage beating that took place in 2019.
In 2022, the couple was sued by Weidenmuller after he alleged that Petty assaulted him for stepping in to defend another female security guard whom Minaj was scolding for allowing fans to breach the barricade. According to court docs, Weidenmuller claimed that Petty accused him of “disrespecting” Minaj and sucker punched him.
“I felt a blinding pain in my head, neck, face and jaw. I could tell in that instant that something was seriously wrong with my jaw,” the court documents read. “I now have five plates in my jaw, and my jaw has not yet been fully reconstructed. The doctors must still insert implants into my jaw as a part of the reconstruction process.”
He added: ” In the interim, the doctors have inserted donor bones from a deceased person into my mouth in order to preserve space for the future implants.”
Initially, Weidenmuller asked for around $20,00 to cover his medical bills and another $700,000 for his ongoing injury and “emotional pain and suffering.” The judge untimely decided he would be awarded $503,318. According to the alleged victim’s lawyers, they attempted to contact Minaj and Petty over the suit, but to no avail.