American rapper Nicki Minaj has been detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, according to local media reports.
Minaj filmed part of her encounter with police, posting it to social media.
In the video, a police officer can seemingly be heard telling Minaj: “You are under arrest.”
A spokesman for Dutch police, Robert van Kapel, told NBC News: “We can confirm that we have arrested a 41-year-old American woman at Schiphol Airport because of possession of soft drugs”, without naming the woman in question.
A statement given to the PA agency by Dutch police confirmed that the woman remained under arrest on Saturday evening.
The music star posted a series of messages on X apparently in relation to the incident.
“They took my luggage without consent,” she wrote in one. In another she added: “This is Amsterdam btw [by the way], where weed is legal,” using a colloquial term for the drug cannabis.
In further posts, Minaj also alleged: “They’ve been trying to stop me from coming to every show. They took my bags before I could see them. Put it on the plane. Now saying they’re waiting on customs.”
The artist was reportedly preparing to fly to Manchester for a concert at the Co-op Live venue on Saturday evening.
Doors to the concert opened late on Saturday, although it was unclear whether the gig would go ahead as planned.
SURPRISING FACT
While Amsterdam has gained a reputation as a destination spot for marijuana, the drug remains illegal in the country, though it is decriminalized for personal use. Officials in the Netherlands have more recently come around to incrementally legalizing marijuana, starting with a pilot program approved in September to legalize the sale of marijuana in two Dutch cities, though the trial excluded Amsterdam. The four-year trial period kicked off in December in the cities of Breda and Tilburg.
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