Rihanna Supports A$AP Rocky at Trial, Alleged Victim Describes ‘Shooting’
After evading a crush of cameras outside, Rihanna made a surprise courtroom cameo in the front row of A$AP Rocky’s gun assault trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday, lending her support as her longtime partner fights charges he pulled a semiautomatic firearm and shot live bullets at a former friend three years ago.
The superstar singer was seated between Rocky’s mom, Renee Black, and his sister, Erika B. Mayers, with beefy security guards on either side of the trio. She watched silently as alleged victim A$AP Relli, born Terell Ephron, testified for a second day, giving his account of the alleged shooting. The “Umbrella” artist, who shares two young sons with Rocky, arrived separately and was escorted inside using a secure elevator. Clad in a double-breasted black coat dress, she was looking around the courtroom as the public filed in, her arm propped on the courtroom bench. When video was played, she leaned forward and donned glasses with thick black frames.
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From the witness stand, Ephron told jurors that he and Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, were arguing on a street in Hollywood, California, on Nov. 6, 2021 when Mayers allegedly pulled a pistol on him. He previously testified that tensions were running high because he had just been in a car with A$AP Bari, whose real name is Jabari Shelton, when he overheard Mayers call him “mad emotional” during a phone call.
“I knew he had a gun,” Ephron testified, saying Mayers brandished it shortly after they first met up across the street from the W Hotel. Ephron said Mayers grabbed him first, waved the gun in his face, threatened him and walked away when some passersby approached. Ehpron said he continued to pursue Mayers around a corner because he felt like he would never see him again and wanted to voice some grievances.
“I see Rocky turn around. When he turns around, he’s like, it kind of looked like a movie. He kind of, like, pointed down and shot the first shot. When he shot the first shot, I felt my hand [get] hot,” Ephron said, claiming a bullet grazed him just below his left knuckles. He said at that point, he reached for Illijah Ulanger – another member of their A$AP Mob hip hop collective who goes A$AP Illz and who had arrived at the meeting point with Mayers – to use him as a shield. “I’m trying to not get hit at this point,” Ephron said.
Mayers, 36, is charged with two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Prosecutors claim the Grammy-nominated rapper fired multiple shots from a 9mm semiautomatic gun that was never recovered.
For his part, Mayers claims he was carrying a starter pistol as a prop gun for protection that night. He admits he fired two “warning shots,” claiming it was to break up a scuffle between Ephron and Ulanger. Mayers is adamant he never fired any live bullets. If convicted as charged, Mayers is facing up to 24 years in prison, prosecutors have said.
Surveillance video at the center of the trial was first shown in court in November 2023. It’s a series of clips from multiple commercial and residential cameras depicting Mayers holding some type of firearm. The blurry, black and white video of the alleged shooting has no visible muzzle flash and had no sound when it was recorded near the corner of Selma Ave. and Vista Del Mar Ave. in Hollywood. When the compilation was played again during opening statements, footage of the alleged shooting was synchronized with the sound of two loud cracking noises captured as the audio to a different video from around the corner. Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec told jurors during opening statements that they were able to marry the sound from one video to the other because a security floodlight triggered during the incident and was visible in both.
Mayers was first arrested over the case in April 2022. Back then, the incident was described by police as an argument between acquaintances that escalated into gunfire. Rolling Stone was the first to identify the alleged victim after learning Ephron had filed a civil complaint.
In his opening statement Friday, Mayers’ lawyer Joe Tacopina said the evidence will show multiple people in Mayers’ inner circle knew he carried a “fake gun” for safety, to “scare off potential attackers” after he was the victim of prior violence and a stalker. Tacopina said the specific gun in Rocky’s hands that night was a prop that came from the set of a music video he filmed in July 2021 with Rihanna.
“This case is about one man’s jealousy, lies and greed,” Tacopina said, calling Ephron the “source of all the evidence” in the case. “Ladies and gentleman, this case is all about money. The evidence will show you it’s nothing more than a money grab,” Tacopina said. “The evidence will make clear Relli is trying to leverage a fabricated story to extract money from Rocky.”
On the witness stand Wednesday, Ephron said he fled the alleged shooting and walked back to the Lowes Hollywood Hotel, where he was staying with his girlfriend. He said they returned to the scene together and found two 9mm shell casings that he later handed over to police.
“It wasn’t hard for me to find the bullets, because I knew exactly where I got shot at,” he told the jury. He said he walked into the Hollywood police station the next day and handed them over. Last Friday, Tacopina told jurors that Ephron’s story about finding the casings couldn’t be trusted. He said seven police officers responded to the scene of the alleged shooting and searched the same area with flashlights. They didn’t find any casings.
Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec led the direct examination of Ephron Wednesday and asked how he felt in the direct aftermath of the incident. “I felt betrayed. I felt hurt. I felt like, I was texting him, I wanted to see where he was at with the situation,” Ephron told the jury. “I felt like he was just denying it, just acting like the shit didn’t happen. So it was hard for me to like even trust him or anybody around me at that point.”
Ephron testified that he’s faced serious “consequences” for reporting the incident to police. He said his artist management company, Shut Eye Entertainment, lost all of its clients. He no longer has any social media due to the backlash, he said.
“It’s been a living hell, you know what I’m saying? Like, death threats, people labeling me a snitch for saying something that happened,” he testified. “My artists turned on me, my producers, they all turned on me because of the decision I made. They felt like, okay, I can’t back them up no more, I can’t support them with what I’m doing, going to police. They didn’t want nothing to do with me no more.”
Before the day ended, Przelomiec walked Ephron through a series of text messages he exchanged with Mayers in the minutes and hours after the shooting. In one text sent at 11:58 p.m., Ephron shared a photo of one of the shell casings he allegedly found at the scene.
“U try killing me,” he texted Mayers. He received no answer and followed up with another message saying Mayers “should have” finished the job.
“Rell wtf iz u talking about?” Mayers responded by text. “Why u tellin ppl I shot at you?”
Ephron said the response upset him. “I received it like he was not owning up to the fact,” he told jurors. Ephron said he then sent a photo of his alleged injury and accused Mayers of setting him up.
“I tried to what? N—- I know you hate me. I hate you too,” Mayers texted back. “Stop making shit up Rell.”
At that point, Ephron said he texted Mayers that he had evidence. He had taken photos of the surveillance cameras on the buildings around where the incident took place. He said Mayers then texted him again, calling him an “opp,” meaning an opponent.
“U don’t love me cuz we don’t do business so it iz what it iz,” Mayers wrote in a follow-up text. “Now u trynna extort [me], talkin bout i shot at u n shot u 4 times and all type of nonsense u a phony and u don’t have the best intentions, stop texting me,” another text continued, “stop calling my manager and call police if I ‘shot’ @ u u weirdo.”
Przelomiec also asked Ephron about a separate text exchange he had with one of his business partners shortly after the shooting. “I wanna get this n—-s money,” Ephron wrote to the partner. “He shot at me.”
Przelomiec clearly wanted jurors to see that Ephron made a fresh report to a third party within hours of the alleged shooting. But the mention of money will no doubt be a theme when Ephron faces what’s expected to be a fierce cross-examination on Thursday.
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