Miley Cyrus talked about Nicki Minaj mainly during their 2015 “feud” around the MTV VMAs, and again indirectly with a lyric in her 2019 song “Cattitude.”

2015: The VMA / NYT drama

Back in 2015, Miley was asked in a New York Times interview about Nicki’s tweets calling out the lack of recognition for “Anaconda” at the VMAs and the wider issue of how Black women are treated in the industry.

  • Miley said she hadn’t followed the whole situation closely but still criticized the way Nicki expressed herself. She framed Nicki’s response as “not very polite” and too angry rather than focusing on the industry issues Nicki was raising.
  • She contrasted “coming from a place of love” with what she saw as Nicki’s “anger,” which many readers and fans read as Miley basically painting Nicki as the stereotypical “angry Black woman.”

Those comments are what led to Nicki calling her out live at the 2015 MTV VMAs with the now‑iconic line, “Miley, what’s good?” after accepting her award.

How Miley’s comments were viewed

Miley’s remarks were seen by a lot of people as:

  • Minimizing Nicki’s very specific point about race and recognition in pop culture.
  • Policing Nicki’s tone instead of engaging with the substance of her criticism, which is why people connected it to the “angry Black woman” stereotype.

Online discussions at the time and later recap posts generally describe Miley as “ignorant” about the racial context and siding with Taylor/MTV rather than acknowledging Nicki’s perspective.

2019: “I love you Nicki, but…”

Years later, Miley dropped the song “Cattitude,” which includes the line: “I love you Nicki, but I listen to Cardi.”

  • Fans took this as a light but messy bar that dragged Miley back into the Nicki/Cardi fan‑war discourse when she really didn’t need to be there.
  • That line prompted Nicki to respond very harshly on her radio show, bringing up Miley’s past comments and mocking her image and career moves.

So, in simple terms:

  • In 2015, Miley said Nicki was basically too angry and not “polite” about the VMAs/race conversation.
  • In 2019, she tossed in that “I love you Nicki, but I listen to Cardi” lyric, which reopened the tension and got Nicki publicly firing back again.

Note: Information gathered from public internet sources and forum-style discussions, and reflects how the situation has been reported and talked about online.