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This is actually pretty funny.
By Nicole Pomarico — Written on Jul 21, 2020
Fans are still reeling from Nicki Minaj's pregnancy announcement, and it's already inspired all kinds of memes. Twitter has totally lit up with mentions of Minaj's baby-to-be, including plenty of tweets that take guesses at who the father of her dad might be. One of them is pretty out of left field, too: Tom Holland, the star of Spider-Man.
If you've seen the tweets, you might be confused — is this a joke, or is it for real?
Is Tom Holland Nicki Minaj's baby daddy?
Here's the explanation behind all the jokes, and once you're in, you'll probably think it's pretty funny, too.
Minaj announced her pregnancy this week.
The news came as a total surprise to fans when Minaj shared a photoshoot she'd done, showing off her baby bump — and judging by its size, it looks like she's pretty far along.
"Love. Marriage. Baby carriage. Overflowing with excitement & gratitude," she wrote on Instagram. "Thank you all for the well wishes."
Tweets about Holland being Minaj's baby daddy immediately surfaced.
Not long after Minaj's announcement, Tom Holland's name started trending on Twitter and it was all because of the memes and jokes about him being the father of Minaj's baby. There was no actual debate about this — just jokes that seemingly came out of absolutely nowhere.
This joke goes back years — and it's not clear exactly where it originated.
As one fan on Twitter explained, people are joking about Holland and Minaj because people once edited together photos of them as a couple, and the joke apparently stuck.
It's s been a joke for years ... no idea how it started but people started to make these edits about Tom Holland and Nicki being a thing," the fan tweeted. "Nobody knows how it started lol but it’s been like 3 years."
Minaj is actually happily married to Kenneth Petty.
There's actually no truth to the rumors; Minaj has given fans no reason to doubt that the father of her baby is her husband, Kenneth Petty, who she married last October. Sorry to anyone who was hoping that Holland might really be the father!
Holland himself is also in a relationship.
Though Holland doesn't make a habit of speaking about his personal life publicly, he's rumored to be dating an actress named Nadia Parkes. Reportedly, they've been living together since the lockdown began in London, even though it was pretty early on in their relationship at that point.
"Tom has told friends and family they're in an official relationship and living together so soon into their romance has only made them stronger," an insider said.
The stars themselves have yet to acknowledge the jokes.
Holland and Minaj are keeping quiet about all of these tweets but hopefully, they've seen them and are getting just as much of a laugh out of them as the rest of us have.
Sending so many congrats to Minaj and Petty — and keeping our fingers crossed that plenty of baby pics are on the way.
Nicole Pomarico is an entertainment and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared in Cosmo, Us Weekly, Refinery29, and more.