New York: Robert Maraj, the father of rapper Nicki Minaj, died Saturday after being struck by a vehicle in a hit and run on Long Island, authorities said.
Maraj was walking in the roadway near the intersection of Roslyn Road and Raff Avenue in Mineola, New York, about 6:15 p.m. Friday when he was hit by a northbound vehicle that left the scene, the Nassau County Police Department said in a statement.
Maraj, 64, a resident of Mineola, was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said, before he was pronounced dead by a doctor Saturday.
The Nassau County Police Department said its Homicide Squad was investigating.
A representative for Minaj confirmed his death but did not provide further details.
Minaj, whose parents moved to the United States from Trinidad before she joined them in the United States two years later, has spoken previously about crack cocaine use and domestic violence at her childhood home in Jamaica, Queens, including an episode in which her father tried to burn down her house.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2015, Minaj was asked if she was abused by her father.
"No. He was just abusive," she said. "I would always hear him yelling and cursing, always. And it made me feel it was the way to interact, because that's how I saw him interacting.''
Minaj said in a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone that as a child, she "always felt like being rich would cure everything," allowing her to take care of her mother so they could leave her father. "That was always what drove me," she said.
"I was disappointed in my father," she said. "I was afraid, very afraid, that something would happen to my mother. I had nightmares about it."
