Nick Minaj has defended her relationship with registered sex offender Kenneth Petty, saying she won't let critics "run my life".

The rapper recently reunited with Kenneth, who is believed to have been her high school sweetheart, but immediately came under fire as he has spent time in jail for attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl.

She went Instagram official with her new beau on Sunday, sharing snaps of them cuddling up together as she celebrated her 36th birthday in Turks and Caicos.

Tellingly, though, she disabled the comments on her Instagram posts to stop critics pointing out his criminal past.

(Image: Instagram)

But she preemptively slammed her haters when she shared a picture of Kenneth lifting her up and another of her arching her back over him in bed when she captioned them: "Oh they wanna talk? Let’s give’m smthn to talk about. *Shania voice*."

According to TMZ , Nicki also got defensive when she admitted her new man had done something wrong.

"He was 15, she was 16 ... in a relationship. But go awf, internet. y'all can't run my life. Y'all can't even run y'all own life. Thank you boo," she wrote online.

(Image: Instagram)

But that's not the whole picture: Kenneth, now 40, spent nearly four years in jail after he was convicted of first-degree attempted rape in April 1995, when both he and his victim were 16.

He used a sharp object during the attack, prosecutors told the court, and was sent to an NY state prison for the crime.

After he was released, Petty had to register as a level two sex offender - meaning he's considered a "moderate risk of repeat offence" - and must be on the sex offenders register for life.

Petty was also convicted of first-degree manslaughter when Lamont Robinson killed by multiple gunshot wounds in 2002.

He'd originally been charged with murder in the second degree but made a deal with prosecutors and spent just seven years in jail for the death, The Blast reports.

He was released in May 2013 and was kept on supervised release for five years, only finishing in May 2018.

But his rap sheet doesn't seem to concern Nicki, who appeared to acknowledge that they came from the same hometown when she shared lyrics from Adele's hit Hello on her Instagram page.

She captioned a picture of Petty lifting Nicki's leg while she pouted into the camera: "Did you ever make it out of that town where nothing ever happens?... it’s no secret... that the both of us... are running out of time..."

It's not the first time Nicki's associates have got her into hot water with fans.

Her own brother, Jelani Maraj, was convicted in November 2017 of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl - a crime he continually denied throughout his trial - who Nicki supported throughout.

And she collaborated with the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine on their song Fefe, despite fans' anger that he was sentenced to four years of probation in October 2018 for his sexually explicit video depicting a 13-year-old girl.