A long-running legal dispute between performer Cardi B and an Orange County man who claimed his back tattoo was misused for sexually suggestive mixtape cover art ended Friday with a federal jury finding in favor of the Grammy-winning musician.
A group of high school-age fans late Friday afternoon crowded around Cardi B outside the doors of the federal courthouse in Santa Ana and yelled their support, minutes after jurors who had deliberated for less than two hours found in the rapper’s favor.
Cardi B embraced the members of her legal team immediately following the verdict. Kevin Michael Brophy — the man who accused her of misusing a likeness of his tattoo — approached her several minutes later on a conciliatory note.
“Honestly, much respect, at the end of the day I do respect you,” Brophy told Cardi B. “It was what it was.”
The verdict followed a two-and-a-half-day trial in the $5 million case at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.
The crowd of several dozen screaming teenagers immediately closed in around Cardi B as she exited the courthouse, leading security and officers to urge them back. The performer’s remarks were drowned out by the cries of support from the young fans, which included an apparently optimistic young man who held a sign asking the rapper to be his homecoming date.
The trial centered on Brophy’s distinctive back tattoo, which depicts a tiger battling a serpent and has appeared in tattoo magazines. Brophy’s attorneys alleged that photo editing software was used to put the back tattoo onto a male model shown with Cardi B on the cover of one of her mixtapes.
The result, Brophy argued, was a tattoo he considered a “Michelangelo piece” being co-opted and made “raunchy and disgusting” in cover art he contended he never would have approved. During his testimony, Brophy described feeling that the image had been “devalued” and that he had been “disregarded.”
During her own testimony, Cardi B — whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar — pointed out that it wasn’t Brophy’s back on the cover, and the face of the model couldn’t be seen. The model who posed for the photos used on the mixtape cover is Black, while Brophy is White.
Cardi B said the artist who created the cover used a “small portion” of Brophy’s tattoos without her knowledge. Her attorneys defended the use of the tattoo in the cover as a transformative fair use protected by the First Amendment.
The rapper also disputed that Brophy’s life was disrupted or that he was caused any distress, noting that he has remained employed by a surf and skate apparel brand.
During closing arguments on Friday, Brophy’s attorney, Lawrence Conlan, described him as a regular guy with a wife and two children who wasn’t looking for notoriety, and who was blown off when he sent Cardi B’s representatives a cease-and-desist letter.
Cardi B’s attorney, Peter Anderson, countered by accusing Brophy of being more concerned with chasing dollars than protecting his reputation. He noted that there were no witnesses who testified to Brophy being harassed or teased over the mixtape cover.
Cardi B earlier this year was awarded $1.25 million from a defamation lawsuit after a blogger posted videos that included false claims. She also pleaded guilty and was ordered to perform 15 days of community service, in connection with a pair of brawls at New York City strip clubs.
The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.