Earlier today, Nicki chatted with Ryan Seacrest and explained the concept behind her Grammy performance as well as her decision to walk the red carpet with a Pope.

On why she walked with the religious figure on the red carpet
He is major part of the story and the movie that I’m writing about one of my alter egos. His name is Roman. Basically the religious figure is there because he was called on by Roman’s mom to rehabilitate him.

On her Grammy “Red Riding Hood” outfit
I wasn’t going to do the red carpet. I was backstage preparing to have my performance outfit and not do a carpet and go and sit down. My people wanted me to do it. I had this amazing robe made for me by Versace sent from Milan. I said, “Oh, my God I have to wear this. They were so generous. They sent me so much stuff  and I was originally going to wear it during the performance, but when I got it, it was a little heavy for the performance. I said, “Hey, it’s only one way to do it and that’s the red carpet.”

On The decision to perform “Roman Holiday”
First of all, The Grammys chose ‘Roman Holiday.’ The producers of the Grammys came into the studio, and they heard ‘Roman Holiday’ and I could not play them another record after they heard that. They went crazy. I could have chosen to do a no-brainer pop song, but I can’t do it anymore. I have to stay true to what I’m doing. Seeing how comfortable I was last night, I was like, “Oh, my God”, this was the best choice because my fan base, the Roman Empire and the Barbz they understand every single thing that I’m doing because Roman was created two years ago. Roman isn’t something new just coming out. I’ve been writing the story for a very long time and yesterday was his coming out party.

Laurianne [Gibson] is such a good friend of mine and she did an amazing job bringing my vision to life. It was very literal if you know who Roman is and what he’s all about but if you don’t know the Roman character then you have to kind of digest it.

On the concept of the performance
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. And so his mother is scared and the people around him are afraid because they’ve never seen anything like him. 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.”