Who is Kenneth ‘Zoo’ Petty? Nicki Minaj’s husband’s criminal history and latest update

Nicki Minaj, the long-time supporter of President Donald Trump, is currently making a buzz on social media, poised as the new press secretary after she flew to Michigan on Air Force One and filmed a social media video pretending to interview for the open position. After a shaky five days in the White House, the ex-press secretary Katie Zacharia was terminated by the Trump administration, and the post remained vacant.

However, beyond the ‘Bang Bang’ singer’s scroll-stopper video on Air Force One, which got nearly 10 million views on X, her personal life is not so flashy. Her brother Jelani Maraj was convicted of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old child in November 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2020.

Her soulemate, Kenneth Petty, is also a convicted felon with multiple convictions on his record. Here is everything latest on Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth ‘Zoo’ Petty.

Nicki Minaj’s relationship with Kenneth Petty

Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty first met as teenagers when they were at LaGuardia High School in New York City, together living in Queens. They dated during school for a brief time, but they lost touch, then reconnected in 2018 and married a year later. The duo welcomed a son in 2020.

Also Read: Child rape convict's sister Nicki Minaj gets into Trump’s close circle, but can the US president pardon him?

“He understands her as a person,” Minaj's friend and musician Derrick Milano told People magazine in an October 2019 interview. “I think that's what the connection really is with them - it's that he really knows her. It's a different type of connection. He's not famous, he doesn't want to be on Instagram. Like, that's not his M.O. (modus operandi). He's really focused on her.”

Minaj shared details about their teen relationship on X in a January 2019 post, “We were like this about each other since we were very young kids in the hood.” “He was on my body before the big ol' ghetto booty. Before the fame and fortune. Fought my boyfriend cuz I wouldn't be his girl. He was always a lil brazy. But anyway, timing is everything.”

Kenneth Petty’s legal troubles

Over the years, they have maintained a pretty low-key relationship, but Petty's legal troubles have made headlines. Petty was convicted of attempted rape in April 1995 for an assault he had committed the previous year on a 16-year-old girl.

Then he was listed as a level two registered sex offender in New York state and sentenced to 18 to 54 months in prison. As per People magazine, he served four years in prison for the assault.

Minaj, on her part, defended her husband on social media. “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet,” she wrote in an Instagram comment. “Y'all can't run my life. Y'all can't even run y'all own life. Thank you boo.”

In 2020, he was arrested again, because Pety failed to register as a sex as a sex offender. He originally pleaded not guilty at that time. But in September 2021, he pleaded guilty, and he could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, per People Magazine.

Petty was sentenced to a year of house arrest, three years of probation, and a $55,000 fine in 2022, BBC reported, citing data from the US Attorney's Office.

Recent update on Kenneth Petty

AllHipHop reports on September 10 that Petty has submitted a 1994 notarized letter attributed to the woman who accused him of rape in 1994, in which she asked authorities to drop the charges. In the letter seen by the outlet, the accuser reportedly wrote, “On the day that I said I was rape [sic] it is half true and half false.”

The letter also describes the accuser’s claim that Petty didn't allow her to leave after an argument and demanded sex. “He asked to make love with me again. I said no. so we started arguing again. Than he told me if I would have sex with him, I can leave. So I did, because I was already late for school, and I just wanted to leave,” the outlet quotes.