Cardi B is victorious once again in court as she wins a defamation lawsuit that was filed against her in 2020.
According to Complex, the Bronx rapper and her sister, Hennessy Carolina, were sued for defamation by several people they encountered in the Hamptons in Long Island, NY back in September 2020.
The three plaintiffs filed a lawsuit for defamation and assault and battery against the sisters claiming that a video Cardi posted online of their confrontation accused them of being “racist.” In the suit, the plaintiffs also alleged that Cardi and Hennessy altered the video clips “to remove portions thereof, and thereby hold plaintiffs in a false light, so as to tend to expose and in fact expose each plaintiff to public contempt, ridicule and disgrace and harm.”
Rolling Stone reported that in New York, where the suit was filed, Judge William Condon dismissed the case stating that the lawsuit was “baseless.”
“[Plaintiffs] have failed to allege any special harm or defamation per se,” Judge Condon wrote in his decision. “They cannot specifically identify who the defamatory statements were made to. Further, neither Cardi B nor Michelle Diaz made any defamatory statements or publish(ed) any video to the Internet concerning the incident. The words uttered to plaintiffs do not arise to defamatory language as they were merely general insults.”
Billboard also reported that the three plaintiffs, Peter Caliendo, Pauline Caliendo and Manuel Alarcon claimed that they were at a beach near Smith Point on Sept. 6 when the incident took place. They accused Cardia B, Hennessy and Diaz of parking and blocking Alarcon’s vehicle. Alarcon, who was wearing a MAGA hat, stated he approached Diaz, who was driving and Hennessey started filming the interaction and allegedly “shouting foul and threatening language and defamatory statements.”
“These peaceful Suffolk County residents were quietly enjoying a Sunday at the Smith Point beach with their families, when rap celebrity Hennessy Carolina suddenly approached them, raging, spitting, insulting, assaulting, defaming and threatening them, all the while videotaping them because one of them wore a MAGA hat,” John Ray, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told ABC New York.
“Then Hennessy, Cardi B and celebrity model Michelle Diaz deviously edited the videotape and published the edited version all over social media, across the world for all to see, and maliciously falsely labeled these residents and their families as ‘N…s’ and as racists. … Real threats of harm were made. They live in fear now. Their reputations have been ruined.”
Earlier this year, the Grammy Award-winning rapper was paid nearly $3 million in punitive damages and attorneys fees after a jury found Tasha K, whose real name is Latasha Kebe, liable on counts of defamation, invasion of privacy, and infliction of emotional distress.
Variety reported the $3 million comes on top of the $1.25 million Cardi B was awarded.
Two weeks ago, Tasha K filed an appeal not to pay $4 million in damages to the Bronx rapper.