We Officially Have the Most Entertaining Celebrity Trial of the Year

Everyone's favorite unfettered female rapper, Cardi B, is making headlines lately for her testimony in court. The hip-hop artist is currently litigating a civil suit filed by a security guard who alleges the rapper physically assaulted her in 2018. Anyone who expected Cardi B to show up and show out with theatrics, jokes, and a big personality has yet to be disappointed by the footage making its way—via media outlets' livestreams and bite-size clips circulating online—from the Alhambra, California, courtroom. As the ancient wisdom dictates, when you combine videos and Cardi B, you're sure to get some viral moments. Since the trial began on Monday, it has turned into what NBC describes as an “online spectacle,” entertaining the masses far and wide. But don't worry if you, like me, didn't even know that Cardi B was being sued or why people are laughing about it so much. I present to you a sorting of the details.

Why is Cardi B being sued?

Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almánzar, is currently embroiled in a civil suit for $24 million that was initially filed in 2020 by a security guard, Emani Ellis, who alleges that the “Bodak Yellow” rapper assaulted her in 2018 outside of a medical office in Beverly Hills, California. The trial is litigating Ellis' claims related to the incident, which occurred while Cardi B—who at the time was secretly pregnant with her first child with her then–husband and Migos rapper, Offset —was arriving at a covert obstetrics appointment. According to Ellis' earlier testimony, while doing her work patrols in the building that housed the doctor's office, she voiced out loud her shock at seeing the celebrity rapper. Ellis claims that this triggered Cardi B into believing that the security guard was filming her with her cellphone, which would have given Ellis material to leak the rapper's pregnancy to the public. Ellis claims that the miscommunication turned into a physical altercation, during which Cardi B allegedly screamed profanities ( including, she claims, racial slurs and body-shaming terms ), spit on Ellis, and cut Ellis' cheek with her fingernail, all leaving Ellis “deeply traumatized. ” Ellis refutes the claim that she was using her phone at the time and alleges that Cardi B used her “celebrity status ” to get Ellis fired from her job as a security guard.

Cardi B, who took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, tells a different story. According to the Grammy-winning artist, a verbal argument most definitely occurred, but she maintains that nothing physical transpired between her and the plaintiff. According to Cardi B, Ellis was following and filming her while she was clearly trying to get into the medical office undetected. Cardi B alleges that Ellis was the aggressor, not the other way around, but that still nothing physical happened.

Shouldn't this be a fairly straightforward case? There has to be security footage of this somewhere!

Well, that's just the thing: No footage of the altercation, which purportedly happened seven years ago, has been found via the building's security cameras, if they even had any on the fifth floor , where the incident took place. Additionally, there's been much back-and-forth about whether Ellis was even using a phone at the time. Ellis claims in her testimony that she wasn't, but according to Cardi B's lawyers, an incident report that Ellis submitted to her supervisor at the time stated that she had been using her phone to check her voicemail. What's more, Ellis seemingly contradicted herself about where the alleged scratch was. (The security guard eventually got a scar treated by a plastic surgeon, although it has not yet been established where that scar came from.) So far, a handful of experts have testified about the potential merits of both testimonies , but there's been plenty of inconsistencies on Ellis' part and a significant lack of material proof overall.

I've been seeing a lot of (I'll admit) funny clips of Cardi B on the witness stand. What are all of these viral moments and why are they happening in a courtroom?

As with any videotaped celebrity trial made available to the public —Gwyneth Paltrow's 2023 trial comes to mind—there are certain to be some viral moments clipped and circulated on the internet. Naturally, a number of clips from Cardi B's days on the stand have gone viral on social media. This is not only because of the nature of the case itself, but because the rapper has partially made his fame on being a hilariously unfiltered, profane, and endearingly big personality. This personality translated to some rather interesting moments in the courtroom this week, partially aided by the line of questioning from Ellis' legal representation, which oscillated between comedic and downright insulting to Cardi B.

For example, for some reason Ellis' lawyers asked the rapper about her hairstyles changing daily , prompting the rapper—who is known for her flashy style choices—to explain that they're wigs. There was also the moment where Ellis' lawyers asked if Cardi B called Ellis “fat,” to which she responded, straight-faced, “ No, I was calling her a bitch .” At one point, after getting exasperated with the lawyers' line of questioning about why she might have seen Ellis as a threat, Cardi B said that she was “very concerned” because, from her point of view, “I'm pregnant and this girl's about to fucking beat my ass, hello?!” (Ellis' lawyer then volleyed the rapper's sarcasm with a comical, “ Hello, hello, I'm here .”) When Ellis' lawyers asked if Cardi was “disabled” at the time of the incident, she responded with a heavy eye roll, saying: “At that moment, when you're pregnant— I'm very disabled . You want me to tell you the things I can't do?” That one got a big laugh from the courtroom. When lawyers probed Cardi B to describe Ellis' physical stature, the rapper referred to the security guard as “ security heavy ,” and when questioned further on what that meant, she explained knowingly, “She looked like she could protect a building.” And while needing Cardi B on her definition of “verbal altercation,” Ellis' lawyer asked whether he and the rapper were having a verbal altercation at that very moment in the courtroom, to which Cardi B coyly responded that they were having “a debate .”

Then there were all of the times Cardi B may not have said something, but made faces so comedic that Jim Carrey would be jealous. Just see her incredulous reaction to Ellis' lawyer asking her to repeat the obscenities she said on that day back to the plaintiff's face in the courtroom. (This bonkers request was, naturally, objected to by Cardi B's legal team; the judge sustained that request, as well as countless others throughout the off-kilter trial so far.)

I could keep going, but thankfully Cardi B's fans have made supercuts of these moments that you can watch instead. One of these supercuts is attached to a tweet from a Cardi B fanpage on X that summarized the whole order in the most accurate and succinct way possible: “Cardi B in court today was like an SNL skit.”

Without wading into the legalese, I have to admit that Cardi B is coming across as hilarious here.

This is true! But it's worth noting that not all of the artist's time on the stand was comedic. There were also moments of the opposing lawyer's questioning that carried the whiff of racial microaggressions. (Cardi B identifies as Afro-Caribbean, and the plaintiff, Ellis, is Black.) Yes, the non-Black lawyer asking Cardi B about her various hairstyles is funny, but it's hard not to think of how Black women's hair and hairstyles are often politicized and racially coded. This strange undertone is well illustrated by the very next question Ellis' lawyer asked, which was whether the famous rapper is affiliated with a gang . According to a tweet from Meghann Cuniff , a legal affairs reporter who is known for covering celebrity trials, Ellis' lawyer “had an All-Star Fail” when he eventually “annoyed” the judge with “inane questions” like these and others.

How does it look like this case is going to go?

It's never easy to tell and only a fool would try to be absolute about what a jury will decide, but it's not looking good for Ellis so far. Not only is there a lack of proof of her claims—and not only is Cardi B incredibly charming in these moments of her testimony—but in the latest development from the trial, a receptionist who witnessed the incident testified that Ellis was the aggressor , and in fact possibly scratched the receptionist. It doesn't help that, from what the world has seen of the trial so far, Ellis' lawyer doesn't appear to be the most astute, shall we say. ( Multiple tweets have joked that the plaintiff must have gotten her lawyer off of the bargain-priced Chinese online shopping site Temu .) All of these stumbling blocks, plus the fact that the plaintiff is suing for a staggering amount of money, have led many onlookers to conclude that this case smells a bit like a money grab.