July 31 (UPI) — A lawsuit filed against Cardi B over the cover art for her first album has been postponed by a federal judge in California who ordered the rapper to find another lawyer.
Musician and surfer Kevin Michael Brophy filed the lawsuit against Cardi B, whose legal name is Belcalis Almanza, in October 2017 — just over a year after the release of her album Gangsta B**** Music Vol. 1.
The cover of the album features Cardi B drinking from a bottle of Corona Extra beer while apparently receiving oral sex from a man in the back of a car bearing the same distinctive design Brophy has tattooed on his back.
Brophy claims in the lawsuit that Cardi B “misappropriated his likeness” while her lawyers have argued that including the tattoo was “transformative fair use” among other arguments.
Cardi B has been represented by lawyer Alan Dowling, who has suffered health problems that have delayed the start of jury selection for the trial, which was scheduled to begin next week.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in his order Friday rescheduled the trial to begin on Oct. 18 “due to the unavailability of defense counsel because of serious illness.”
The rapper was also ordered to find another lawyer, according to Law & Crime.
“We’ve been ready to try this case for two years now,” Brophy’s lawyer Larry Conlan told the outlet.
“Of course we’re not happy about another delay, but it will be brief, and then our client can finally get this invasion of his privacy stopped and justice served.”
