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Nicki Minaj Reveals She Was Fired From Red Lobster for Chasing Customers Who Took Her Pen

Nicki Minaj GQ
Nicki Minaj revealed to GQ that she was once fired from her waitressing gig at Red Lobster for following customers who had stolen her pen and flipping them the bird; plus, she reveals the meaning behind the banana scene in her "Anaconda" video

Started from the bottom, now she's here. Nicki Minaj may have all the power now, but like most everyone else, she's had her share of odd jobs in the past. In a new interview for GQ's November issue, the "Anaconda" rapper revealed she was once fired from a waitressing gig at Red Lobster after she "followed a couple who had taken her pen into the parking lot and then flipped them the bird," writes GQ's Taffy Brodesser-Akner. 

According to the mag, Queens native Minaj, 31, was also briefly a customer-service rep for a company in NYC. "I like dealing with people, but I don't really like a lot of bulls–t, so maybe customer service wasn't the best job for me," she admitted. 

Related: PHOTOS: Nicki's wildest Instagram pictures

No matter now. These days, the "Bang Bang" collaborator is doing just fine for herself. Thanks to guest verses on numerous songs by other artists, Minaj has more Billboard Hot 100 hits than the late Michael Jackson. She also recently broke the record for the most video views in a 24-hour period, with her raunchy, booty-shaking single "Anaconda," which racked up 19.6 million views on Vevo in the day after it was posted. 

Asked to explain the video during her interview with GQ, Minaj replied, "I don't know what there is to really talk about. I'm being serious. I just see the video as being a normal video."

Related: PHOTOS: Nicki's craziest hairstyles ever

Pressed, she told the mag, "I think the video is about what girls do. Girls love being with other girls, and when you go back to us being younger, we would have slumber parties and we'd be dancing with our friends." Of her character in the video, she added: "She is just talking about two guys that she dated in the past and what they're good at and what they bought her and what they said to her. It's just cheeky, like a funny story."

So there's no deeper meaning whatsoever? Minaj initially refused to indulge GQ's analysis, but toward the end of the interview, she conceded one point.

Related: PHOTOS: Nicki and other stars without makeup

"I'm chopping up the banana," she told writer Brodesser-Akner. "Did you realize that? At first I'm being sexual with the banana, and then it's like, 'Haha, no.'" Of the kitchen scene preceding the scene with rapper Drake, she added, "Yeah, that was important for us to show in the kitchen scene, because it's always about the female taking back the power, and if you want to be flirty and funny that's fine, but always keeping the power and the control in everything." 

Related: PHOTOS: Celeb CEOs

For Minaj, part of having control means being able to change up her image at whim. "I always thought that by the time I put out a third album, I would want to come back to natural hair and natural makeup," she told the mag. "I thought, 'I will shock the world again and just be more toned down.' I thought that would be more shocking than to keep on doing exactly what they had already seen."

For more from Nicki Minaj, pick up the November issue of GQ, on stands Oct. 28. 

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