A motion was filed on Monday, June 12, that ordered Kevin Michael Brophy to pay Cardi B $350,000 to cover her legal fees in his failed attempt to sue the Grammy award-winning rapper for including his giant back tattoo on the cover of her 2016 “Gangsta B*tch” mixtape cover.
In 2017, Kevin Michael Brophy Jr. sued rapper Cardi B because of the provocative use of his back tattoo in her Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 mixtape.
On the cover, Cardi B is seen facing the viewer while a man leans down in between her legs with only his back showing. Brophy told the press that his life was “devastated” thanks to the use of this tattoo, and wanted $5 million in damages.
The back tattoo ended up on Cardi B’s mixtape cover after designer Timm Gooden found Brophy’s back tattoo online and superimposed it onto the back of the model featured in the cover design.
At the time, Cardi B’s team argued that the use of Brophy’s tattoo was fair under “transformative fair use law.” This argument was rejected and paved the way for Brophy v. BelcalisAlmánzar (Cardi B’s legal name) to go to trial.
Cardi’s lawyers were gearing up to formally demand that he repay her attorneys’ fees a prize to which she was potentially eligible after beating his accusations in court. Under that process, Cardi and her pricey team of lawyers could have won far more than $350,000.
Also identified by the precise proposed order is the above-highlighted $350,000 in attorneys’ fees, which the relevant documents show Brophy Jr. will pay “plus interest at the rate of 10% per annum” and on top of “reasonable” legal “fees incurred in collecting” the sizable sum.
“The parties now have reached an agreement avoiding the necessity of defendants’ motion for attorney’s fees and application to tax costs,”
the two sides wrote in Monday’s filing, hinting at the looming threat of such a fee motion from Cardi’s team.
Meanwhile, the 30-year-old recently dealt with another successful lawsuit, this time against blogger Tasha K for defamation.
Reports indicate that, when the YouTuber filed for bankruptcy, the rapper paused debt collection concerning the case. Time will tell if anything else plagues her in the courtroom, though we’re sure she has a solid team to work with.
