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After the fatal stabbing of a crew member who worked on Nicki Minaj’s Pinkprint Tour last month, Nicki Minaj has revealed that she strongly considered canceling the tour altogether.
“I don’t think people understand how fast-paced this business is,” the U.K.’s Metro. “You never get a chance sometimes to do what normal people do, like mourn a loss. Everything happens so fast.”
The stabbing took place on Feb. 18 outside Che Bar & Grill in Philadelphia. A fight between her crew members — 29-year-old De’Von “Day Day” Pickett and 27-year-old Eric Parker — and Pierce Boykin reportedly started inside the restaurant and spilled out into the street where Pickett and Parker were then stabbed. Parker survived while Pickett died from multiple stab wounds to his torso the following day.
Boykin, 31, has been arrested on March 3 and charged with murder and other charges with his alleged involvement with the incident.
Minaj said that Pickett “was a part of my crew, and it is devastating to think someone can work somewhere, make a living and then lose their life for absolutely nothing.”
And added that everyone on the tour took it really hard. “My band members took it very hard,” she said. “They were with him all the time and toured with him for years. When I came to rehearsal after he had been killed, the look on everyone’s face – it was heart-wrenching.”
Despite the heavyhearted feelings, Minaj has decided to continue on with the tour in order to pay tribute to Pickett and show that Boykin can’t win in this.
“I can’t let anything stop us from putting on the show because that would be quitting,” she said. “So we’re going to continue the tour in his memory.”
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