Rapper Nicki Minaj has felt "haunted" ever since she underwent an abortion as a teenager, but admits she "wasn't ready" to become a mother.

The Starships hitmaker rapped about her personal tragedy in her new song All Things Go, and she has now explained she terminated the unwanted pregnancy while she was studying at a performing arts school in New York.

Minaj reveals she was just a teenager at the time, and still feels racked with guilt over her decision to have an abortion.

She tells Rolling Stone magazine, "I thought I was going to die (when I found out about the pregnancy). I was a teenager. It was the hardest thing I'd ever gone through... (The decision has) haunted me all my life... It'd be contradictory if I said I wasn't pro-choice. I wasn't ready. I didn't have anything to offer a child."