The first reference to Roman was a passing mention on Twitter—Minaj simply stated that she had “officially changed her name” and that she would only respond to Roman Zolanski.

Two months later, Minaj announced that Roman was her “twin sister.” Minaj gave little information on Zolanski outright, but Zolanski was described as crazy and was conspicuously female. Roman Zolanski was not so much a character at the time as he was a dark personality and force of will, a particularly one-dimensional ego who was “crazy” and nothing else.

Months later in the documentary My Time Now, Minaj elaborated that Roman is a boy who lives inside her, who says the things that she doesn’t want to say. Nicki also said in the documentary that she “asks him to leave, but he can’t. He’s here for a reason. People have brought him out. People have conjured him up now he won’t leave.”His personality is also very arrogant and insensitive to others. Zolanski’s switch from female to male appears to purely be a retcon—that is, Roman is now considered to have always been male, even though in his early stages he was called female.

The character Martha Zolanski, Roman’s mother, was created as a type of foil for Roman, first appearing in “Roman’s Revenge”. Martha, an older woman with a great respect for tradition, manners, and “the rules” further highlights the outlandish and audacious behavior of Roman. The relationship between the two is clearly strained.

Unlike in his first appearances, Roman’s personality on later tracks such as “Where Them Girls At”,”Dance (A$$) (Remix)”, “Give Me All Your Luvin'”, “Starships”, “Turn Me On” and “Pound The Alarm” were significantly more carefree and fun-loving. This has given an overall view of Roman as a rebellious and comical character that is not necessarily maleficent. These songs show the happier side of Roman and that he is not always as angry as he was earlier portrayed, since Minaj stated that Roman does not care anymore.

Roman is typically portrayed as blond and wears mostly dark clothing. An exception to this was in the “Monster” music video when he had black hair, although Minaj said that he is likes to experiment with pink and green wigs and wear lipstick. Roman has been compared to Eminem’s alter ego, Slim Shady.