Major News Site Gets Backlash for Posting a Photo of Nicki Minaj as a Monkey

An online LGBT media platform has been getting hammered on social media, ever since it published a meme that represented Nicki Minaj in the image of a monkey.

UK's Gay Star News doesn't typically put out articles that are challenged as politically incorrect. Thus, it came as a surprise to many who follow the site, when early Thursday, March 30, they began trending over a collage that has been deemed racist for how it depicts Minaj in contrast to other celebrities she is profiled beside.

Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, and Adele are some of the artists, whose childhood photos populate the meme. They are shown smiling, with outdated hairstyles and missing teeth, as is typical of throwback pics. But a couple of other world famous women have non-humans selected to fill the space above their names, including Britney Spears, who is shown as a robot, and Madonna, who is an obscure marking circled on an ancient canvas of some sort. Then there is the fuzzy little primate dressed up as a baby, with "Nicki Minaj" written beneath.

Droves of people on Twitter lashed out at Gay Star, which apparently attempted to escape controversy by quickly deleting the tweet, prompting a follower by the name of Estelle Hart to write, "Hey @gaystarnews screen grabs exist so you don't get let off the hook for this racist s***."

Before long, Gay Star apologized for the tweet and provided an excuse that left many feeling further insulted. "We apologize an offensive meme was posted on our Twitter feed. We didn't look closely at all the images in it and it won't happen again," the site's Twitter page released a message stating. Gay Star later provided a more comprehensive apology to indy100.com, writing:

"This is something we shared and totally failed to look at properly. It is totally vile. The person who made the mistake is mortified as am I. It was up for just a few minutes and then deleted as soon as he saw. We instantly and unreservedly apologised on Twitter and I would like to repeat that we are desperately sorry. This was purely because we didn't spot it. This has never happened before and will not happen again. We will not only say sorry but will work to make amends. We are strongly anti-racism and this really matters to us."

Source: indy100.com