Anti-ICE protesters appear during Minnesota church service
Anti-ICE protesters appear during a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Don Lemon criticized Nicki Minaj after calling for her arrest for covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.
Minaj called Lemon “disgusting” and used an anti-gay slur in a post on X after the former CNN anchor livestreamed an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota on January 18. A group of protesters interrupted the service over claims that one of the church’s pastors worked for ICE.
“Is that so? I want that thug in jail!” Minaj wrote on January 19th, with an X in all caps: “He would never do that to another religion. Lock him up!”
She also responded to several other tweets about Lemon, including one in which she said she “deliberately wrote” an anti-gay slur in her first post.
“They would have collectively ignored the despicable act displayed by Lemonhead. I’m glad they’re angry. They’re about to get even more angry,” she wrote.
In an Instagram video that day, Lemon criticized Minaj’s posts as “wild” and “homophobic.”
“You’re out of line,” Lemon said, before questioning Minaj’s citizenship status. The Trinidad and Tobago-born rapper reportedly said he is not a U.S. citizen.
The former CNN anchor also upgraded Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, as a registered Level 2 sex offender.
“You have the nerve to talk about what you think about me and my actions,” Lemon said. “Nicki Minaj, please live. Please stop choosing me.”
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Minaj and Lemon.
Minaj has become more publicly supportive of President Donald Trump’s administration in recent months. In 2025, she teamed up with United Nations Ambassador Mike Walz to speak out about alleged anti-Christian violence in Nigeria. Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has dismissed the country’s character as “religiously intolerant.”
Lemon, who is openly gay, anchored CNN for about 10 years from 2014 until he was fired in April 2023. He has since started his own media company and hosts a podcast of the same name, The Don Lemon Show.
Nicki Minaj’s criticism of Don Lemon stems from anti-ICE protests at church
Lemon was one of several journalists who attended the church protest in Minnesota.
Video on social media showed a group of protesters entering Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18th. They made unconfirmed claims that one of the church’s pastors worked for ICE. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
During Lemon’s nearly seven-hour livestream, he spoke with members of the congregation, protesters and one of the church’s pastors.
“This is unacceptable,” lead pastor Jonathan Parnell told Lemon. “It is shameful to interrupt public gatherings during Christian worship.”
“This is intolerable. We cannot pretend to be God’s house while harboring someone who is directing ICE agents to wreak havoc in our communities,” protester Nekima Levy Armstrong told Lemon.
The protests come less than two weeks after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7th.
Contributor: Kimi Robinson and Greta Cross, USA TODAY
Melina Khan is USA TODAY’s national trends reporter. Contact her at melina.khan@usatoday.com.
