On Wednesday, the singer Rihanna appeared for the first time at the Los Angeles trial of her longtime partner A$AP Rocky, on the day of its most important testimony — the description by a former friend of the moment Rocky allegedly fired a gun at him, the AP reports. The singer superstar, who has two toddler sons with the rapper Rocky, sat out of view of the courtroom’s cameras, between Rocky’s mother and sister, in the downtown Los Angeles criminal courthouse. Security brought her in surreptitiously to avoid crowds Wednesday morning. Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Athelston Mayers, has been standing trial on two felony charges that he fired two shots from a handgun at the former friend, who is known by the name A$AP Relli and was born Terell Ephron. If convicted, Mayers faces up to 24 years in prison. Earlier, he rejected a plea.
Rihanna watched Wednesday as Relli testified about the moment Rocky allegedly fired a gun at him on a Hollywood street in 2021, grazing his knuckles. He had been shouting angrily at Rocky, who was walking away after an initial confrontation and scuffle, when Rocky pulled a gun from his waistband and held it in the air, Relli testified. “He turned around and then it was like BOOM!” he told the jury. “The whole thing was like a movie, he kind of like pointed down and he shot the first shot.” The case against Rocky will largely depend on how credible the jurors find Ephron. Police officers who searched the Hollywood sidewalk after a report of shots fired found no shell casings. Police recovered no fingerprints from the 9 mm casings Ephron brought them, and no 9 mm pistol was found when a search warrant was served on Rocky. His defense attorneys say that Relli was the aggressor and that Rocky fired a starter pistol, which shoots only blanks, that he carries for security. A police officer also testified on Wednesday that there was no sign of a shooting at the scene that day.
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