Nicki Minaj on Mariah Carey Feud: I Compensated by "Being Crazy"

USMagazine, Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 1:10pm (PST)

Months after the news first broke of a feud between American Idol judges Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey, fans of the show will finally get to see it transpire onscreen when the new season premieres on FOX on Wednesday, Jan. 16. So just how bad will it get?

Minaj, 30, opens up about the conflict during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres for the comedian's talk show, airing Tuesday, Jan. 15. In it, she confesses to acting "crazy" around her fellow judge but says she's ready now to bury the hatchet.

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"I don't know...It was just two big ol' divas, I guess," she replies when DeGeneres asks what happened between the two.

"I was, like, just sitting there and I guess before I went in there, I heard all this stuff that was being said, but I didn't believe it," the rapper explains. "I heard them saying, like, 'Mariah doesn't want you on the panel.' But I was saying, 'No, I'm friends with Mariah.' I was arguing people down. Like, 'Don't believe everything you read! You're crazy.' So I went there, and I started feeling a little bit of 'the shade.' And I just kind of overcompensated by being crazier."

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"It's like a defense mechanism," she continues. "It's really that your feelings are hurt…so you kind of just compensate by being crazy."

Minaj soon realized that wasn't helping matters, though. So she reined in her behavior.

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"We're fine [now]," she insists. "I cannot hold a grudge against Mariah Carey. What people don't understand is that I've looked up to her for so many years...I don't know if she's gotten over it, but I have. I mean, I'm over there cracking up, laughing, having fun. So if she's still holding a grudge, I don't know. I don't care."

The hip hop star admits to caring about other things, though -- namely, how she'll come across to the public when the live shows begin airing. "I don't want to look like a crazy psycho again," she says. "I am really not a crazy psycho, you guys. I swear."

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Nicki Minaj on Mariah Carey Feud: I Compensated by "Being Crazy"