Nicki Minaj’s Cousin’s Friend’s Swollen Balls

There was no shortage of anti-vax bullshit and misleading statements in 2021. But the story of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls is perhaps most emblematic of how off track we got. Before discussing said balls, let’s be perfectly clear: The various covid-19 vaccines will not affect your or your loved one’s nuts. Now, onto the saga of the family friend’s family jewels.

Minaj set off an international incident via tweet in September. It’s too stupid to even copy and paste the words so we’re just gonna go ahead and refer you to the screenshot above and note it got a lot of engagement. Which is great for Minaj and a nightmare for public officials around the world, who went into scramble mode to counter yet another comically spurious vaccine claim. Minaj’s tweet about swollen nuts and a wedding called off led the White House to offer a call (Minaj claimed it was an invite), pissed off the UK’s chief medical officer, drew a rebuke from a surely exhausted Anthony Fauci, and forced the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health to go on a wild goose chase searching for any signs of junk in distress.

“One of the reasons we could not respond yesterday in real time to miss Minaj is that we had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false,” Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said during a press conference. “Unfortunately, we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim.”

May we never speak of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls again.