Nicki Minaj Postpones North American Tour Amid Reports of Low Ticket Sales (Updated)

Nicki Minaj has taken to Instagram to clarify she did not cancel the North American leg of her tour, but rather rescheduled.

"So to clarify; because I realize common sense is far from common... I haven't CANCELLED anything. I reversed the order of the US & EUROPEAN LEGS of my tour. This is for obvious reasons to anyone with a brain. My album was originally going to drop in June which would've given me 3 months of tour rehearsal. However, I was still writing & recording up to last week. We are all grown right? We can all do math right? Or will they just pretend to not have basic sense so that they can board the Nicki Hate train & get some clicks? I can't rehearse 4 WEEKS for a tour I originally planned on rehearsing 3 months for. I give my fans QUALITY. I write & co produce my own music. Therefore, I can't rehearse while I'm WRITING & RECORDING my album. My true fans understand & know that I will deliver an extraordinary US TOUR which begins in MAY."

"My European fans get the SAME EXACT DATES they've always had. Australian fans SAME EXACT DATES they had," she added. "Cancelled what? Where? The narrative they are trying to create is disgusting. But I must say, I'm enjoying this. I love bringing some excitement to this shit."

PREVIOUSLY:

Nicki Minaj has pulled the plug on her upcoming North American tour with Future just a month before it was set to kick off, citing her need to "reevaluate elements of production," per a statement from Live Nation. The news comes alongside unsubstantiated reports of low ticket sales.

One casualty of the rescheduled concert tour, which is now slated to kick off in May 2019, is that Future will no longer be a co-headliner due to a scheduling conflict of his own. And the cancellation is only for the North American leg of the tour. The previously announced European leg will occur as scheduled, now kicking off the entire tour in February 2019.

News of the cancellation came just a couple hours after Page Six reported extremely low ticket sales. According to a source with Live Nation, per the report, "Nicki's tour could be the most disappointing ticket sales of the year for any artist."

The source went on to detail several major cities where Minaj has sold a few thousand tickets in venues that can hold up to 20,000 people. At the time of that report, those same sources said the tour was in danger of being cancelled, and now that's happened.

Minaj, meanwhile, posted a video to her social media accounts saying that it was simply a matter of timing and the delay of the "Queen" release by two months. "Now, I just simply don't have the time to rehearse and be on the road and give you guys the level of a show I need to give," she said.

It's been just a day since Minaj gave a well-received performance at the "2018 MTV Video Music Awards," and only a few days after she went on a bizarre Twitter rant where she blamed Kylie Jenner and her baby Stormi for keeping her latest album, "Queen," from debuting at number one.

"Queen" wound up coming in just behind Travis Scott's "Astroworld," which Minaj attributed to Kylie posting on Instagram that she and Stormi would be joining Scott on tour with a link to the album. After ranting about Scott and Spotify and all sorts of other things, Minaj returned to Twitter a few hours later to say it was all satire.

Since the cancellation announcement, Minaj has been on Twitter assuring her fans that the tour was postponed so she could rework it to give them a better experience, and even promising a few perks for her "platinum and gold VIPs." Minaj says that Live Nation will be taking refunds, or allowing already-purchased tickets to be used at the rescheduled concerts, depending on what the fans wanted.