Rap superstar and 'American Idol' panelist Nicki Minaj has revealed that she was bullied when she was younger and it was an incredibly negative experience that has stayed with her.

During an interview with Elle magazine, the 'Starships' hitmaker explained that girls made her life "a living hell" because she moved from her native Trinidad to America and had a different accent to the other kids at her school:

"I went through a lot of bullying early on. Girls made my life a living hell. We had come to America from a different country. My brother and I had accents. It was very tough."

She added that going through such an ordeal taught her to build a wall to protect herself and she can still be very defensive even today, which she resents: "So I've always put up this wall, it was a self-defence mechanism growing up, because I was almost expecting people to attack me. And I still have it. It's sad."

Watch a recent interview with Minaj below: