It’s been a year since Nicki Minaj announced her deal with ABC Family — now known as Freeform — to produce a autobiographical comedy about her life. Well, we now know why we’ve yet to see anything come into fruition.
Despite receiving a straight-to-series order from network exec Tom Ascheim last September, plans for the sitcom has been placed on hold indefinitely, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publication is reporting that after shooting a pilot this January, the show, titled Nicki, is being redeveloped and is no longer a series order.
“A lot of things were happening at the same time, and creatively we wanted to make some changes with the pilot,” Minaj told radio show The Breakfast Club in October. “We’re taking our time—everyone involved wants it to be perfect and I felt like there were other things that needed to be figured out first.”
In 2015, Minaj revealed that Ariana Neal will be playing the younger version of herself on the sitcom, which was said to be centered around the rapper’s childhood in Queens and her rise to fame.
At the time, a press release named Whoopi Goldberg as neighbor named Miss Martha, model Selita Ebanks as Minaj’s mom and Wesley Jonathan as Nicki’s dad. McCarrie McCausland was said to play Nicki’s brother.
The changes seem appropriate as Nicki’s brother Jelani Maraj recently went under fire due to alleged child rape charges. I will say that I was willing to at least see what Nicki’s show would bring to the table, as the rapper has never personally disappointed me, here’s hoping things come back into fruition after some revamps.