Nicki Minaj is contesting a request for private text messages in the civil lawsuit brought by former employee Brandon Garrett, adding a new dispute to a case centered on an alleged backstage confrontation during the Pink Friday 2 World Tour.
Garrett sued Minaj in 2025, alleging that she assaulted him at a Detroit concert in April 2024. The current disagreement is not a finding about what happened backstage. It concerns discovery, the pretrial process in which parties seek information and material they believe may be relevant to a lawsuit.
Garrett is seeking communications Minaj had with others regarding his employment from January through April 2024, as well as messages concerning the alleged incident. Minaj has objected to portions of those requests as overly broad and says she has no messages about the claimed assault.
That distinction is central. A party can object to producing material for several reasons: it may argue a request reaches too far, sweeps in private communications that are not relevant, is unclear, or seeks records that do not exist. The available account indicates Minaj’s position includes both a scope objection and a claim that no messages about the incident are in her possession.
What the lawsuit alleges
The underlying civil complaint stems from an alleged confrontation on April 21, 2024, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. Garrett worked as a day-to-day manager during the tour.
Garrett alleges Minaj became angry after learning that he had asked another employee to collect her prescription medication. In the complaint, he says Minaj threatened him, struck his face hard enough to dislodge his hat, and then hit his wrist. He further alleges that he locked himself in a bathroom because he feared for his safety.
Those are allegations in a civil lawsuit, not established facts. Minaj’s attorney at the time, Judd Burstein, denied them and called the suit completely false and frivolous.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office declined to pursue criminal charges in January 2025, citing insufficient evidence and asking Detroit police for further investigation. That decision did not resolve the civil case or determine whether Garrett’s allegations could be proved under the standards that apply in civil litigation.
Why text messages are a major issue in a civil case
Text messages can matter greatly in an employment-related dispute because they may help establish timing, notice, relationships between staff members, or how people described an event soon after it allegedly occurred. But requesting messages is not the same as automatically receiving every conversation from a person’s phone.
In discovery, a request generally has to be tailored to issues in the case. Here, messages concerning Garrett’s employment between January and April 2024 could potentially include routine tour-management communications alongside far more personal exchanges. Minaj’s contention that the request is overly broad indicates a dispute over where to draw that line.
There is also a practical difference between a request for communications about a topic and proof that such communications exist. Garrett can seek relevant messages; Minaj can respond that she has searched for responsive material and has none concerning the alleged assault. The present disagreement therefore turns partly on the definition and range of the request, and partly on the claimed absence of particular records.
Electronic communications are often referred to as electronically stored information, or ESI. Texts are a familiar example, but the phrase can cover numerous forms of digital material. The supplied information only identifies requested text communications, so it does not establish whether any other categories of electronic records are at issue.
A discovery fight already underway
The texts dispute follows earlier friction over written discovery. Garrett accused Minaj and her company, Pink Personality Inc., of not adequately answering questions tied to the incident. He argued that delays affected his ability to move the case forward and sought $3,900 in legal expenses.
Minaj’s attorneys answered that responses were supplied in July, followed by additional information in September. They also maintained that Garrett’s previous effort to obtain court intervention had become outdated.
Written discovery can include questions requiring a party to provide information under oath or requests asking for documents and communications. A disagreement about the sufficiency or timing of answers can produce a separate procedural battle before the merits of the underlying allegations are ever tried.
That is where this case appears to stand on the information available: the parties are arguing not only about Garrett’s allegations, but also about what evidence must be exchanged, when it must be exchanged, and whether the disputed categories of information are properly defined.
What “overly broad” means here
An “overly broad” objection generally argues that a discovery request is framed so expansively that it reaches more material than is reasonably connected to the claims and defenses in the lawsuit. It does not necessarily mean that every requested message is irrelevant. It can mean the requesting party may need to narrow the people, subjects, time period, or wording involved.
Garrett’s employment-related request is limited to a January-to-April 2024 window, but a date range alone does not settle a relevance dispute. Employment communications can cover a wide range of personal and professional topics. The issue is whether the request, as written, appropriately focuses on material that could bear on the claims, defenses, or credibility questions in this particular case.
Privacy concerns can overlap with that argument, especially when personal messages are included in a request. Still, privacy is not necessarily an absolute barrier to discovery. Parties and courts can address sensitive material through narrower search terms, limited production, redactions, or confidentiality measures. No specific protective arrangement or court ruling on the texts request is established by the information available.
Criminal and civil tracks are not the same
The earlier decision not to bring criminal charges is an important part of the timeline, but it should not be read as a final answer to the civil allegations. Criminal prosecutors assess whether they can pursue charges under the criminal-law standard and based on the evidence available to them. A civil plaintiff brings a separate claim and follows a different procedure.
Likewise, the discovery arguments do not decide whether an assault occurred. They concern access to possible evidence. If the court later weighs the dispute, its role would be procedural: evaluating the requests, objections, responses, and what further action—if any—is appropriate.
For readers following high-profile legal cases, that separation is worth keeping in view. A headline about records, motions, or messages can sound like a development on the allegation itself. Often, it is instead a development about the rules used to prepare a case for the stage where those allegations might be assessed.
What remains unresolved
Several major questions remain open based on the supplied record. There has been no stated finding that messages relating to the alleged incident exist. There is also no stated ruling compelling Minaj to produce the challenged communications, nor a ruling agreeing that the requests are too broad.
Garrett continues to pursue allegations arising from the April 2024 Detroit event. Minaj continues to deny those allegations. The dispute over communications shows how a case can develop on two tracks at once: one involving the factual account of an alleged confrontation, and another involving the evidence each side says should be available before the case can be decided.
It is a procedural conflict with potentially meaningful stakes, but not a substitute for a verdict or a judicial determination on the merits. Until a court resolves the evidence disputes or the civil claims themselves, the competing accounts remain allegations and denials.
For another look at how online communications and control over visibility can become a broader public issue, see Discord’s plans for web-searchable public server posts and opt-outs.
