Rihanna Returns to A$AP Rocky Trial for Heated Day of Testimony
Rihanna returned to A$AP Rocky’s firearm assault trial in Los Angeles on Thursday, her second day sitting in the front row for A$AP Relli’s testimony that Rocky fired two 9mm bullets at him during a curbside confrontation in 2021.
The superstar singer and businesswoman, who shares two young sons with Rocky, was again escorted through a secure entrance, separate from her longtime partner, who entered through a public door. She sat silently between Rocky’s mom, Renee Black, and his sister, Erika B., as fireworks erupted when defense lawyer Joe Tacopina grilled Relli over his Instagram posts allegedly promoting a flashy lifestyle.
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“I don’t see how you’re basing me as a person on my Instagram,” Relli, born Terell Ephron, complained, getting visibly frustrated. Judge Mark S. Arnold called for a 10-minute recess to calm the situation. As people were filing out, Ephron looked over at the defense table and appeared to address Rocky directly.
“You did it to yourself,” Ephron muttered in the direction of Rocky, born Rakim Mayers. The judge sternly ordered him to stop speaking.
“No, no, no. Do not address anybody,” the judge said. But Ephron continued.
“He’s staring at me,” Ephron protested, appearing agitated.
At this point, Rihanna stood up and exited the courtroom through a non-public door behind the judge’s bench. When Ephron and his civil lawyer, Camille Vasquez, approached the same area to find a private place to meet, court staff directed them to wait, apparently concerned the parties might cross paths. A short time later, the trial broke from lunch.
Clad in a menswear-style white shirt and necktie, Rihanna followed the morning session intently. Before jurors were called in, Tacopina argued to admit evidence he planned to use for his cross-examination. Judge Arnold ruled Ephron’s bank statements would be fair game while only his social media posts from after the Nov. 6, 2021 incident, not before, would be allowed. The judge also said Tacopina could question Ephron about a letter his civil attorneys sent Mayers after the alleged shooting that sought a $30 million settlement ahead of a planned lawsuit.
“To settle all present and future civil claims we are authorized to extend an offer of $30 million dollars,” the letter shown on a courtroom screen read. “We will not entertain any offer in the six figures and are committed to vigorously pursuing all claims in the event litigation becomes necessary.”
Ephron started testifying in the criminal case on Tuesday. He told jurors he met Mayers in high school and was a founder of their A$AP Mob collective, a group of aspiring hip-hop creators and entrepreneurs in Harlem. (The acronym stands for Always Strive and Prosper.) Ephron described a fraying in his relationship with Mayers as their levels of success diverged. He described feeling shocked and furious when Mayers brandished a firearm during their face-to-face meeting outside the W Hotel in Hollywood the night of the incident.
Mayers, 36, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. He claims he was carrying a starter pistol as a prop gun for protection that night. He admits he fired two “warning shots” on the street corner, claiming it was to break up a scuffle between Ephron and another friend. 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.
In one of the most dramatic exchanges Thursday, Tacopina asked Ephron if he was itching for a physical fight with Mayers the night of the incident because he believed, inaccurately, that Mayers reneged on a promise to cover funeral expenses for one of their friends. Ephron said he was not. Tacopina then confronted Ephron with text messages he deleted from his phone before handing his device over to police. In the texts sent roughly 12 hours before the alleged shooting, Ephron accused Mayers of threatening to “beat [him] up.”
“I wish you would,” Ephron texted, allegedly taunting Mayers. “Give me a reason,” he continued, “U been pussy.” Ephron downplayed the texts from the witness stand and said he never expected Mayers to brandish a firearm. He claimed Mayers threatened his life.
In his direct testimony a day earlier, Ephron described the alleged shooting. He claimed he was walking behind Mayers, pursuing him around a corner after an initial scuffle because he figured he would never see Mayers 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 – 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.
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 gunfire 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, the footage was synchronized with the sound of two loud cracking noises captured as the audio to a different video from the area. 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.
In his opening statement last week, 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 with Rihanna in July 2021.
“This case is about one man’s jealousy, lies and greed,” Tacopina told the jury, 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 on foot and walked back to the Lowes Hollywood Hotel, where he was staying with his girlfriend. He said they returned to the scene together about an hour later 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 over the casings. Last week, Tacopina told jurors that Ephron’s story 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. No firearm was ever recovered either. Earlier this week, Tacopina also told the court that the defense would not be producing the alleged prop gun.
During questioning on Wednesday, Przelomiec walked Ephron through a series of text messages that he exchanged with Mayers in the minutes and hours after the alleged shooting. In one text sent at 11:58 p.m. that night, Ephron shared a photo of one of the shell casings he allegedly found at the scene.
“U try killing me,” he texted Mayers, according to messages shown in court. Ephron said 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 u?”
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 and figured he could collect video. 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 asked Ephron 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.”
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