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Model/influencer spent six hours on the stand Wednesday as the first witness called in her $100 million defamation lawsuit over the cancellation of Rob & Chyna
Blac Chyna kept her cool on the witness stand Wednesday when the lawyer representing Kylie Jenner, mom Kris Jenner and sisters Khloé and Kim Kardashian suggested the model now suing the women for defamation harbored resentment toward Kylie for dating the rapper Tyga, the father of Chyna’s son.
“Do you bear a grudge against Kylie Jenner,” lawyer Michael G. Rhodes asked during his cross-examination of Chyna in a Los Angeles courtroom on the second day of the closely watched trial.
“No, not at all,” Chyna, 33, answered.
“She took your boyfriend, right?” Rhodes shot back.
“No,” Chyna responded with a laugh. “I have, like, no ill will against none of the ladies, actually.”
Chyna, whose legal name is Angela White, spent about six hours on the stand Wednesday as the first witness called in her $100 million lawsuit claiming the Kardashian-Jenner women lied about her and conspired to get her E! reality show Rob & Chyna canceled, effectively ruining her TV career.
She admitted she had to swallow some pride to move in with Rob Kardashian, noting that the house they shared for only a few weeks in late 2016 actually belonged to Rob’s half-sister Kylie.
“The whole time Rob and I were together, the biggest thing he wanted us to do was to live together. So finally I let my guard down — my guard and my pride — and I moved into Kylie’s house, with Rob, so we could be a family,” she testified. She was cut off from elaborating on the “other stuff” she had to set aside to make the move, butfans ofKeeping Up With the Kardashiansknow Kylie started dating Tyga in 2014, just months after reports surfaced that Tyga and Chyna broke up.
Kylie Jenner, 24, was seated in the front row of the courtroom Wednesday, with Kris Jenner, 66, to her right, sister Kim Kardashian, 41, to her left and sister Khloé Kardashian, 37, on the end. She chatted and smiled with her sisters during breaks, embraced Kim reassuringly from behind at one point and appeared to be unmoved by the testimony.
The Kardashian-Jenner women made a settlement offer to Chyna before the case went to trial, but the model and influencer rejected it. In his opening statement on Tuesday, Rhodes told jurors the evidence will show Chyna was physically abusive toward Rob Kardashian, the only son in the famous family. Rhodes claimed Chyna waved a gun at Rob, placed an iPhone charging cord around his neck and hit him in a fit of rage during a fight that started the night of Dec. 14, 2016 and carried into the following day. He said his clients simply voiced concern about the toxicity in Rob and Chyna’s relationship and that it was always up to E! and its parent company NBC Universal whether or not Rob & Chyna would get a second season, which it didn’t.
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Testifying under oath, Chyna admitted picking up a gun and touching the charging cord to Rob’s neck, but she said it was all done “jokingly” during a celebration tied to a media announcement Rob & Chyna had been picked up, at least unofficially, for a second season. She said it wasn’t until Rob swiped her phone and locked himself in a closet with the device that she “smashed” a gingerbread house, wrecked a TV and damaged a door in frustration.
“In the past, there had been a cycle of him taking my phone and posting things about me,” she said, explaining she was “fed up” and wanted her “property back.”
“What on earth possesses you to pick up a gun late at night in a bedroom where your fiancé is?” Rhodes asked.
“The gun was actually in front of him on his side, and he was already messing with it. It’s not like he just left it on top. So that’s when I grabbed it like being funny while he was on FaceTime with his friends,” she said, clarifying that the incidents with the gun and the cord were before the celebration took a turn and ended with the blowout fight.
“Grabbing the gun is funny?” Rhodes asked.
“It was a joke,” she said, clarifying that Rob had told her the gun wasn’t loaded and, either way, she never pointed it directly at him.
When Rhodes grilled her about the charging cord, Chyna admitted she had one end of the cord in one hand, the other end in her other hand and put it over Rob’s head from behind while he was seated on a couch playing video games.
“He was playing his video games, and I was trying to get his attention, like messing with him,” she testified.
Chyna admitted she caused damage in the house, but she was adamant she never hit Rob, never threw a chair at his car and never threatened his life during the blow-out fight that led her to move out of Kylie’s house for good that same day.
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“Your testimony under oath is not one time that whole day did you hit him,” Rhodes asked.
“Nope,” she replied. “When he grabbed my phone, he went into the closet. And before that happened, I already called Kris because I felt like the whole situation was spiraling out.”
Chyna and Rob began dating in January 2016, got engaged that April, welcomed their daughter Dream that November and moved into Kylie’s house that December.
During the cross-examination, Rhodes grilled Chyna over a sworn declaration where she stated she and Rob broke up in December 2016, around the time of the blowup fight. Chyna was adamant she and Rob were still working on their relationship, spent New Year’s Eve 2016 together, went hiking together the next day and expressed their love for one other on video as she underwent a surgery in early 2017.
“No, the relationship – it didn’t break up. We were still together,” she testified. “I just split, meaning I left the house in December. I left Kyle’s house. We were not living together, but we were still engaged.”
Chyna is due back on the witness stand Thursday.