Nicki Minaj revealed in a new cover story for Vogue that her late father’s drug addiction informed her decision to stay away from drugs. “I feel like I will always consider myself to be just like my father,” she said. When a doctor once prescribed Percocet for severe menstrual cramping, it helped, but she soon started taking them even when she didn’t need them. “No one told me that this was a narcotic and this was addictive,” she told Vogue. “Luckily I was able to ground myself. But—once an addict, always an addict. I feel like if you’ve ever experienced addiction to anything, which I have, you always have to think twice and three times about the choices that you make.” Minaj believes that celebrities in particular are prone to substance abuse due to the pressures of living in the public eye. “Look at some of our biggest celebrities. They eventually either get laughed out of wanting to go outside anymore, like Michael Jackson, or criticized, like Whitney Houston, or they fight silent battles, like Prince.”
