Cardi B was looking her best on Thursday when she was spotted exiting a courthouse in Santa Ana, California. The 30-year-old rapper downplayed her usual edgy ensembles in favor of an elegant black dress for her legal episode. The hitmaker is fighting a lawsuit waged against her by a man who says his tattoo was used without his permission on the cover of her 2016 debut mixtape Gangsta B**** Music Vol. 1.
Cardi showcased her hourglass figure in the cozy sweater dress, which featured ribs running vertically.
The short-sleeve look revealed her arms and a hint of her tattoos, while the skirt reached down to her knees.
The WAP rapper’s lustrous raven tresses were parted down the middle and reached to her shoulders.
She elevated her 5ft3in stature with pointy black heels featuring clear plastic straps, and she accessorized with a chic silver quilted Chanel handbag that dangled from her arm.
As she stepped out of the Orange County courthouse, Cardi was seen being led through a throng of reporters.
The musician is being sued by Kevin Michael Brophy for $5 million on claims of copyright infringement.
Brophy’s tattoo was used on the cover of her 2016 debut mixtape Gangsta B**** Music Vol. 1, which shows her in the backseat of a car with her legs spread apart while a shirtless man has his head between them, presumably to perform oral sex.
Cardi has said that the cover artist, Timm Gooden, found Brophy’s tattoo online and inserted a portion of it into the final image without her knowledge of where it came from.
The rapper has claimed the final image is transformative enough to circumvent copyright protections, and she has denied that Brophy suffered distress over the cover, as only part of the tattoo is shown, and the model is a Black man, while Brophy is white.
‘Their life has been disrupted,’ Brophy’s attorney A. Barry Cappello contended in court, referring to his client’s family, according to the Associated Press.
While defending his client, Cardi’s attorney Peter Anderson downplayed claims that people who know Brophy could mistake the model for him, as Brophy also has neck tattoos that are not present on the cover model.
On Wednesday, the judge overseeing the trial briefly stopped the proceedings to admonish both sides after Cappello and Cardi got into a heated argument while she was testifying on the stand.
After sending the jury out, the judge chastised both sides and described the argument as ‘unprofessional’ and ‘not productive,’ according to the AP.
The plaintiff’s attorney and the defendant went back and forth over the cover image, with Cardi reportedly getting angry by some of his questions.
She pointed out that Brophy’s face was not shown in the photo and bristled when Cappello asked about her knowledge of photo-editing softwares.