Nicki Minaj defends her Grammy Awards performance of 'Roman Holiday,' Recording Academy president against 'restricting artists' creative freedom' (Video)

Nicki Minaj’s Grammy Awards performance this past Sunday had a lot of people talking. Minaj performed as her alter-ego, Roman Zolanski, whom her next album Roman Reloaded is based on.

The controversial performance featured priests and an exorcism, which really angered the Catholic League.

The league’s president, Bill Donohue, told The New York Daily News that the performance of Minaj’s single “Roman Holiday” was like "sticking the middle finger right in the faces of Catholics.”

Recording Academy producer, Ken Ehrlich, got a lot of heat for allowing the performance to happen, but he told Gayle King on CBS’ This Morning on Monday that "We don't like to restrict artists' creative freedom.”

Minaj, herself, was left to defend the performance. She called into Ryan Seacrests’s radio show, BET reports.

“The religious figure is there because he was called on by Roman’s mom to rehabilitate him,” she said of the (fake) Pope on the stage.

“I had this vision for him to be sort of exorcised — or actually he never gets exorcised — but people around him tell him he’s not good enough because he’s not normal, he’s not blending in with the average Joe.”

She continued of her vision, “He wanted to show that not only is he amazing and he’s sure of himself and confident, but he’s never gonna change, he’s never gonna be exorcised. Even when they throw the holy water on him, he still rises above.”

Watch the performance below: