Sept. 2 (UPI) — Cardi B will not have to pay $24 million in damages after a Los Angeles County jury determined Tuesday that the rapper did not assault a security guard.
The jury’s verdict, reported by multiple outlets, is the end of a saga that began in 2018 when Emani Ellis, the former security guard, claimed she was left with enduring physical and emotional scars after an altercation with the rapper while she was visiting her obstetrician’s office in Beverly Hills.
Ellis sued the rapper, whose legal name is Belcalis Almanzar, claiming she hit her and scratched her face, leaving her with a scar that required plastic surgery, reported local ABC affiliate KABC. Almanzar said she confronted Ellis for filming her entering the office, saying she was trying to conceal that she was pregnant at the time, the station reported.
“I did not touch that woman.”
Cardi B spoke to reporters outside of court after being found not liable in civil suit. pic.twitter.com/kkliqL8Xip— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) September 2, 2025
“I will say it on my deathbed,” Almanzar told reporters after the jury’s verdict. “I did not touch that woman. I did not touch that girl. I didn’t lay my hands on that girl.”
The trial was widely followed on social media, with observers generating memes from key moments that included Almanzar’s use of profanity, colorful testimony and the array of different wigs she wore.
Ellis told jurors she blurted out the rapper’s name after spotting her while making her rounds but never recorded her, reported Rolling Stone.
“She was extremely upset,” Ellis testified. “She put her finger in my face.”
A doctor’s secretary testified that she witnessed Ellis cornering Almanzar, but couldn’t account for the first 40 seconds of the altercation, reported KNBC-TV. Almanzar’s lawyers argued that Ellis was not badly injured because she did not go to the hospital or file a police report, and instead went home and took a nap, the station reported.
After the trial, Almanzar told reporters that she had to miss her kids’ first day of school and had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to prepare for court after working late on her new album Am I the Drama? She said all the wigs shore wore left her forehead “raw, raw, raw.”
Read the full article here