LOS ANGELES (AP) — The most important testimony at the trial of rapper A$AP Rocky got second billing as the defendant’s partner and the mother of their children sat quietly but shined bright like a diamond in the audience.
Rihanna showed up at his Los Angeles trial — where he’s charged with two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm — for the first time on Wednesday, sitting between his sister and mother as his former friend testified about the moment he alleges Rocky fired at him.
The singing superstar was escorted in and out of the courtroom surreptitiously, and was already sitting in Rocky’s section before the jurors and the media entered. It’s not clear if the jurors noticed she was there, but all other eyes in the room shifted to her.
Wearing a long black dress with buttons that resembled an overcoat, she watched the proceedings calmly and periodically moved oversized, tortoiseshell glasses from atop her head to her eyes.
The witness, who goes by A$AP Relli and was born Terell Ephron, described the night in November of 2021 when he and Rocky, their relationship straining, had a confrontation and scuffled on a Hollywood street, and Rocky pointed a gun at him before walking away.
He testified Wednesday that he was shouting at Rocky as he walked after him, then Rocky pulled the gun again and held it in the air.
“He turned around and then it was like BOOM!” he told the jury. “The whole thing was like a movie, he kind of like pointed down and he shot the first shot.”
He said he felt a burning on his hand where a bullet grazed it.
Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Athelston Mayers, could get up to 24 years in prison. Wearing a tan sport coat and patterned tie, Rocky watched intently as Relli testified about the moment Rocky allegedly fired a gun at him on a Hollywood street in 2021.
Rocky fired another shot that he didn't see because had hidden behind a mutual friend who was there with the rapper, who ran away after that.
He said, “I felt my hand hot,” and later added, “I was hit. Or I was grazed. I didn’t have a hole or nothing.”
Rocky’s lawyer, who will get to cross-examine Relli on Thursday, says the shots he fired were not even from a real gun — they were blanks from a starter pistol that he carried as a prop. The lawyer said Relli knew this, and that was why he was so fearless walking after him.
“Oh it was a real gun,” Relli testified under prosecution questioning, saying he knew because of his scraped hand.
Since the shooting, and his decision to go to police and testify, he has gotten death threats and has been shunned as a snitch, he said, and the modest music management career he built fell apart.
“It's been a living hell,” Relli said.
About an hour after the shooting, Relli returned to the scene and said he photographed and recovered two shell casings. Earlier, while responding to a report of a shooting, police did not find any.
He sent a text to Rocky that was shown in court saying “U try killing me.”
Rocky denied it in his reply.
“Bro wtf is u talkin bout why u tell ppl I shot at u.”
He sent Rocky photos of the shell casings and his grazed hand.
Rocky said he was making stuff up and speaking “all type of nonsense” and was trying to “extort” him.
Rocky and Rihanna, both 36, have two sons together: 2-year-old RZA Athelston Mayers and 1-year-old Riot Rose Mayers. Rihanna revealed she was pregnant with the younger boy after headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023 with a visible baby bump.
The singer and the rapper, who are both fashion moguls, first became close when he provided a verse to her 2012 song “Cockiness (Love It)” and they performed it at the MTV Video Music Awards. They became a couple in 2020.
Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
