Cardi B has been accused of lying to a judge under oath to attend Paris Fashion Week instead of preparing for her upcoming trial over a legal dispute surrounding her album cover.
Last December, Cardi was sued by model Kevin Brophy Jr. over the use of his tattoo’s likeness on the cover of her 2016 mixtape Gangsta B*tch Music Vol. 1, which features a man with a very distinct back tattoo performing cunnilingus on the rapper.
Brophy, whose back tattoo of a tiger fighting a snake is clearly depicted in the cover art, alleges he never posed for the photo or allowed her to use his image in such a manner. As such, he claims Cardi misappropriated his likeness in “a misleading, offensive, humiliating and provocatively sexual way” in order to launch her career.
Brophy and his lawyers are now accusing Cardi, who last month claimed in sworn court papers that she couldn’t make a court appearance because she couldn’t travel after giving birth to her second daughter, of lying to the judge just so she could go to Paris instead of preparing for their upcoming trial.
In a new letter obtained by Complex, Cardi wrote to the judge, insisting that she did not plan on going to Paris when she filed a motion claiming she couldn’t travel.
“This was the only trip I have taken since the birth of our son on September 4, 2021. I was of course, very concerned with, and made thorough arrangements for, the well-being and care of our children in our absence,” Cardi explained. “During our absence, our three-year-old daughter and our newborn son stayed with my mother and a baby nurse for our son, in New York. Both children were and remain in perfect health.”
Cardi continued, “In terms of traveling, my greatest concern was the welfare and health of my newborn son, and I absolutely agreed with my doctor’s strong advice that my son not be subjected travel at such a young age, in this time frame. That is why, when my husband and I made the brief trip to Paris, we were only able to do so because I could leave my son and daughter, for those few days, in New York the care of my mother and a baby nurse, and in close proximity to the pediatricians if the need arose. I could not do that for an extended trip to California during October.”
Later in her letter to the judge, the 29-year-old rapper acknowledges that she understands how someone could misconstrue her visit to Paris, before adamantly denying Brophy’s claim that she lied under oath.
“I fully understand that our going to Paris for such a major event could lead someone to assume it all ‘must have been’ a long time in the planning, and well-known far in advance, but it was not that at all,” Cardi said. “My Declaration of September 10, 2021, was entirely truthful, I concealed nothing, and the opportunity to go to Paris did not even first come to my attention until a couple of weeks later.”
