Rihanna appears in court as A$AP Rocky's alleged shooting victim testifies
Testimony continues Thursday as Rocky's lawyer Joe Tacopina cross-examines Terell "Relli" Ephron. You can watch live on my YouTube channel.
Megastar singer Rihanna watched from the front row of a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday as A$AP Rocky’s former friend testified that the rapper and father of her two children fired two shots at him during a confrontation on a Hollywood street in 2021.
Terell “Relli” Ephron said he saw Rocky turn around and “the whole thing was like a movie.”
“He kind of, like, pointed down. He shot the first shot. … I felt my hand hot,” Relli testified.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec referenced Rocky’s defense that the gun was a starter pistol, not a real semiautomatic, and that Rocky fired it twice only as a warning because Relli was attacking their friend.
“Did you believe as the defendant was shooting at you that he was shooting a real gun or a fake gun?” Przelomiec asked.
“Oh, it was a real gun,” Relli answered.
“And what led you to believe that it was a real gun?” Przelomiec asked.
“I mean, I was, I was hit,” Relli answered, referring to injured knuckles on his left hand.
Relli testified he believes a bullet grazed his knuckles, but Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina told jurors in his opening statement that Relli injured his knuckles on the ground, then “fabricated” two spent shell casings that he told police he found after returning to the scene of the shooting about an hour later.
Relli said Wednesday, “I’m not no expert or anything, but if I was to fall on my hand on anything, my knuckles at the top would be messed up, and everything else would be messed up.” But, he testified, “it just was right here,” motioning to his knuckles.
Rihanna, dressed all in black, listened intently as she sat between Rocky’s mother and older sister. She wore glasses atop her head that she lowered to read text messages between Rocky and Relli that were displayed for jurors. Two security guards sat on each end of her bench, and additional sheriff’s deputies were in the courtroom.
Rocky always enters and exits the courthouse through a mob of paparazzi, but Rihanna avoided all photographers apparently by entering and exiting through the courthouse’s nonpublic parking garage. She was seated in the courtroom when journalists were allowed to enter shortly before testimony began. No one mentioned her presence in front of the jury.


The trial is on the 9th floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, which has hosted many celebrity trials such as O.J. Simpson’s double-murder trial and Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial.
Court was in session from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday instead of the regular 10:30 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. because a juror had something to do. Judge Arnold held a 15-minute break about 11:30 a.m., and Rihanna stayed in the courtroom with Rocky, his mother and sister and the attorneys as journalists and others members of the public waited in the hallway.
Relli is to return to the witness stand Thursday at 10:30 a.m. for cross-examination from Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina. Attorneys will meet with Judge Mark S. Arnold at 10 a.m. to discuss exhibits Tacopina wants to use. He’s already said Tacopina can’t use pejoratives such as “perjurer” or “extortionist” until closing argument. He said Tacopina can ask Relli about felony convictions involving moral turpitude, but Relli doesn’t have any felony convictions at all.
Relli is represented by attorneys Ben Chew and Camille Vasquez, who left Brown Rudnick LLP for Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as partners in the Orange County office in September. Chew and Vasquez represented actor Johnny Depp in his defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard.
Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, is charged with two counts of first-degree assault with a semiautomatic firearm for a Nov. 6, 2021, altercation with Relli, whom he’s known since they were teenagers in Harlem, New York. After Rocky became famous, Relli said he nicknamed him “Mr. Six-Month Man” because of how seldom he saw him, despite their shared artists conglomerate A$AP, which stands for Always Strive and Prosper.
“I never was just straight out like ‘fuck you.’ I never said ‘fuck you.’ Well, I probably did, but it was, like, real wishy washy in the sense of like, loving,” Relli said.
Jurors have seen surveillance videos that show the initial confrontation between Rocky and Relli as well as the shooting. A woman testified Tuesday that she witnessed the shooting from the 7th floor of an apartment building and called 911 after she saw “someone go down” after a man fired a gun.
“I didn’t know if they’d been hit or not. And that’s why I called 911,” the woman said.
Rocky’s defense focuses in part on the fact that seven police officers responded to the shooting scene and didn’t find spent shell casings, bullets or property damaged by gunfire. A body camera also recorded an officer saying someone may have fired a warning shot.
Tacopina said in his opening statement that Rocky’s friend Jamel “A$AP 12vvy” Phillips will testify that Rocky fired his starter pistol to warn Relli because he was attacking their friend Illijah “A$AP Illz” Ulanga.
Judge Arnold spoke to 12vvy via speaker phone on Tuesday and confirmed he won’t speak to prosecutors before he testifies as a defense witness. The judge said prosecutors can ask him about his refusal in cross-examination, and 12vvy said he understands.
Arnold also asked Tacopina if the prop gun still exists.
“The prop gun existed, yes,” Tacopina said.
“Does it exist now?” Arnold asked.
“I don’t know if it exists now. Are you asking do we have it? Are we going to produce it?” Tacopina said.
“Yes,” Arnold said.
“No,” Tacopina answered.
“OK. Well, that answers that question,” Arnold said.
Relli testified on Tuesday that he didn’t expect a fight when he met Rocky outside a parking garage on Argyle Avenue between Hollywood Boulevard and Selma Avenue, and he didn’t know Rocky to carry guns, real or fake. But when he met Rocky that night, he pointed a gun at him and said something like, “I’ll kill you right now, pussy.”
Illz got between them as they tussled, Relli testified, and Rocky “was looking for a spot to shoot. … And if Illijah wasn’t there, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Relli said he “physically could not believe I had a gun in my face.” He knew his relationship with Rocky was over, and he told Rocky to shoot him because “I was just so mad. … What are you doing with a gun?” Relli said 12vvy also had a knife.
“I became furious,” Relli said.
“So what did you say back to him?” Przelomiec asked.
“I told him to use it,” Relli answered.
Relli followed Rocky, 12vvy and Illz and yelled at him. He said he saw Rocky put his gun away, and he didn’t think he’d pull it out again and shoot.
“To be honest, I wasn’t thinking straight. At that moment, I had a lot on my mind. I just wanted to get what was on my chest, off,” Relli said.
Relli said Rocky appeared to have the gun “something kind of like pointed down” when he fired the first shot, and Relli grabbed Illz and “used him as a shield.”
Relli said Illz was “petrified” and “screaming” afterward.
“He literally said, ‘You could have got me killed,’” Relli said. “And I said, ‘What? You came with him?’”
Relli said he would have used anyone else as a human shield, too.
“Anybody that would have been there I would have did that, especially if he came with him,” Relli testified.
Relli ran away, then returned to the scene about an hour later with his girlfriend. He testified on Wednesday that he found two spent shell casings, which he gave to police when he reported the shooting two days after it happened.
However, he previously testified in Rocky’s preliminary hearing that he was not the man shown on a video searching the area, but he testified on Wednesday that he was. Przelomiec asked him about his previous testimony to contradict him.
“As you sit here right now, do you have any recollection of how long it took you to find these fired cartridge cases after you went back to the scene?” Przelomiec asked.
“Probably took me no longer than two, three minutes,” Relli answered.
Przelomiec asked Relli about the consequences he’s faced for reporting Rocky to police. He reminded Relli of his earlier testimony about why he would’t want to fight Rocky: He worked in music management and couldn’t survive if he had a bad falling out with Rocky.
“Since this incident, have you suffered any actual consequences to your career?” Przelomiec asked.
“Oh, of course,” Relli answered.
“Can you explain that to the jury?” Przelomiec asked.
“I mean, it’s been a living hell. You know I’m saying? Death threats. People labeling me a snitch for saying something that happened. My social media — everything that I’m doing far is social media — I don’t have a presence on there no more,” Relli answered.
Mayers was 33 at the time of the shooting, and Rihanna was three months pregnant with their first child.
Police arrested him on April 20, 2022 — about five months after the shooting — as he and Rihanna returned to Los Angeles from Barbados, and officers used a battering ram to enter their home and recover the 9 mm magazine that’s now a key piece of prosecution evidence. The couple’s first son was born a month later.
Then in February 2023, Rihanna performed at the Super Bowl halftime show visibly pregnant. Her and Rocky’s second son was born six months later. By the end of the year, a judge had declared enough evidence exists for Rocky to be tried on his assault charges, following a two-day preliminary hearing that included three hours of testimony from Relli.
Rocky has been out of jail on $550,000 since shortly after his arrest. He’s traveled internationally, including meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in January and performing at the Rolling Loud music festival in Thailand in November. He’s scheduled to headline the Rolling Loud festival in California in March, where he’s to perform new tracks from his yet-to-be released album, “Don’t Be Dumb,” and he was selected to co-chair the 2025 Met Gala in May.
Last week, he rejected an offer from prosecutors that he plead guilty to one assault charge and admit he used a gun, then serve 180 days in jail and be on probation for three years with a seven-year suspended prison to serve if he violates probation. He was to take anger management courses and perform 480 hours of community service, and he’d have to relinquish his firearms because he’d be a convicted felon.
Rocky’s maximum sentence is 24 years in prison; Deputy District Attorney John Lewin said prosecutors likely will recommend a prison sentence of 10 to 12 years if he’s convicted.
Jury asks when case will end
Judge Arnold said jurors asked when the case will be over, and he told them all evidence should be in by the end of next week.
There are seven women and five men on the jury including eight who appear white, two who appear Hispanic and two who appear Asian.
One woman is an assistant principal at an elementary school. Another woman is a scientist who spent 20 years designing space crafts, and one man manages an upscale hotel with a staff of about 80 people. Another man is a former manager at Trader Joe’s, and another woman is a firearms instructor whose father was a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles. Her uncle also was a judge, and she has four cousins who are lawyers.
The alternate jurors include a woman who is an entertainment lawyer and whose husband is a retired entertainment lawyer, as well as a retired administrative law judge from Minnesota and a marketing chief for a healthful snack company.
Judge Arnold issues gag order
Judge Arnold on Tuesday ordered all attorneys in the case not to talk to journalists or other members of the media after Lewin complained about Tacopina.
I’ll be at the courthouse streaming live on YouTube starting about 10:30 a.m. PST. Watch live below:
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