The 'Bodak Yellow' femcee is being sued by a man named Kevin Michael Brophy, who is seeking $5 million in damages, over her album 'Gangsta B***h Music Vol. 1' in a copyright-infringement lawsuit.
- Oct 20, 2022
AceShowbiz - Trial begins in lawsuit over Cardi B's album "Gangsta B***h Music Vol. 1" cover art. A man named Kevin Michael Brophy is suing the Grammy-winning musician and accused the femcee of humiliating him with "raunchy and disgusting" cover art.
On Tuesday, October 18, Kevin told the jury in a courtroom in Santa Ana, California that he's disturbed that something he takes great pride in has been plastered on something that "goes against everything I stand for." He testified, "It felt like my Michelangelo was stolen off a wall and literally ripped off, robbed, and put where ever these people wanted to put it."
The cover art for "Gangsta B***h Music Vol 1", Cardi's debut mixtape, was displayed to jurors. Cardi is shown sitting in the back of a car, staring into the camera, drinking a bottle of Corona beer while a man with a back tattoo has his head between her open legs.
Kevin further stressed that he worries his young son and daughter will eventually see the cover or that their friends will show it to them. "This was a long journey to get this tattoo. It took a lot of commitment. To see it in this light was a complete slap in the face and a complete disrespect to me and my family," he said, before describing the cover art as "raunchy and disgusting."
"It looks like I'm giving oral sex to somebody that's not my wife, somebody that's not my partner, and an image that I never signed off on, ever," Kevin, who filed the copyright-infringement lawsuit in federal court in southern California in 2017 and is seeking $5 million in damages, told the court. "Being a father of two and a devoted husband and a man of faith as well, this goes against everything that I stand for, and I would never ever sign off on something like this."
"For me, it was something I took a lot of pride in," Kevin said about his tattoo. "Now, that image feels devalued. I feel robbed. I feel completely disregarded. There's a lot of things I would like to be spending time on. But the only way to get this removed was to come here to this courtroom."
Cardi's lawyer, Peter Anderson, denied that Kevin's image had been used for the cover art, noting the model in the image did not have tattoos on his neck whereas Kevin does. "[Kevin's] face wasn't on the mixtape," Peter said during his opening statement. "She was already popular. It has nothing to do with [Kevin]."
Timm Gooden, who created the mixtape cover art, was paid $50 to create the design, according to Kevin's legal team. He was told to find another tattoo after turning in an initial draft and Googled "back tattoos" before finding Kevin's.
Cardi, in the meantime, claimed Timm only used a "small portion" of the tattoos without her knowledge. The "Bodak Yellow" raptress previously said the cover art was a transformative fair use of Kevin's likeness.
Testimony is set to last four days and deliberations are due to begin on Friday, October 21.
