Cardi B Declares 'I'm a Gangster' During Heated Deposition in $5 Million Battle
Cardi B was not having it during a heated deposition, part of a $5 million legal battle, and called out a lawyer for wasting hours of her time when she could be with Kulture.
The singer is involved in a lawsuit with a man named Kevin Michael Brophy Jr., who accuses her of using a photo of his tattoo on her mixtape cover without permission.
A judge recently ruled the singer’s deposition was to be made public and the transcript did not disappoint. The deposition happened on April 19 in New York and lasted for several hours.
According to the transcript of the deposition obtained by The Blast, Cardi was grilled about her business in California, the use of the photo on her mixtape, and various other topics relating to her career.
Brophy’s lawyer asked Cardi about how often she comes to California on an annual basis. She said “I go there a lot.” He pressed asking “For what reason?” to which she said “Work reasons”.
He said, “Yes. Why?” and the singer said, “Because I’m Cardi B.”
When questioned about the mixtape tattoo photo being used, Cardi said, “I never really cared to, like see, because I didn’t give a fuck. I cared for me, and it was, like, all about me … I didn’t give a fuck about this tattoo. I didn’t give a fuck about none of that shit. So, when it comes to that, you need to go to the photographer, or whoever edited this shit, because that’s who did it --- clearly.”
The lawyer asked Cardi about the image she was trying to put out there with the album cover. She responded, “I mean I am I am a gangster. Like, I feel like I am a gangster, like I’m a gangsta. You know? I’m a stand-up girl. You know what I’m saying.”
She continued, “Like I’m not a pretty girl, or I am a pretty girl. But I’m not like this, this pink girly girl … I’m like the Buttercup, you know? There’s three powerful girls. There’s Blossom and there’s Bubbles and there’s Buttercup, the green one. That’s me. That’s who I am.”
After the halfway point, Cardi B turns to an associate and says, “Are they fixing my phone? I got to call my mom. Damien, do you know if they got my phone back? I’ve got to call my mom.” Cardi even answered her phone near the end saying, “I’ll call you right back. I’m still …”
At another point she told the room, “Oh my goodness, I’m so tired. I’m fucking tired and I’m in so much pain.”
Later on the lawyer asks Cardi about her stripping days and how much she was making. She told the lawyer she pulled in $3,000 a night and then she commented aloud, “Gees, I came a long way.”
Cardi seemed to have enough towards the end and let her feelings about the lawsuit out. She got heated with Brophy’s lawyer saying, “your client is claiming that’s he distressed. Where is the proof of him being distressed? How is your client now claiming that I used his likeness for my thing. Nobody knows him. Nobody knows what his face looks like. How can you be distressed? How can I ruin your life? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
This man works in a damn fucking surf shop. You’re not a model. You haven’t, like, gone to now damn psychiatrist.”
She called the lawsuit nothing more than a waste of her time. Cardi said, “Like, I could really be with my kid right now. Like, I’m really upset because I really have to be with my kid. All because of some bullshit trying to get money and then $5,000,000, Are you fucking kidding me? That mixtape didn’t even make, not even a million dollars.
Cardi said, “I got real lawsuits with real shit, and I got to deal with this bullshit. This is four hours long taking away from my time, my job, my motherhood.”
The deposition ended shortly after she laid it all out.
Back in 2017, Kevin Michael Brophy, Jr. sued Cardi B accusing her of lifting his image and plastering it on her artwork for her “Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1.”
He claimed to identify himself by the distinct tattoo of a tiger fighting a snake on his back, and said he never met Cardi or posed for a photo and wanted at least $5 million in damages.
Brophy says he was "shocked, outraged, humiliated, and appalled" when he first saw the photo. He claims Cardi used the pic "in a misleading, offensive, humiliating and provocatively sexual way to launch her career in music and entertainment."
In his suit, Brophy says he "has been devastated as a result" of the mixtape cover and he was worried that "his wife believed he had betrayed her." He even said his young son, who was enrolled in a Christian pre-kindergarten school, saw the photo while he and his wife were reviewing it and he had to explain how it wasn't him in the photo.
He claims the tattoo visible in the photo is "one of a kind" and was done over 10 years ago.Cardi recently went to court calling the lawsuit a “celebrity shakedown” and demanded it be dismissed before going to trial. She is demanding the whole case be dismissed.
The case has dragged on for over a year, with it being put on pause for a minute while Cardi dealt with being pregnant with Kulture. The singer’s deposition even had to be postponed with her lawyer at the time writing that Cardi had, “suffered unanticipated post-partum complications sufficiently serious enough to cause her, among other things, to have to cancel an upcoming and much-publicized tour, performing with Bruno Mars.
