A federal civil trial pitting the rapper T.I. and his wife, singer Tameka “Tiny” Harris, against a Chatsworth toymaker over a popular doll line ended with a mistrial Wednesday after a judge found that testimony accusing the company of cultural appropriation was improperly played for the jury.
T.I. and Tiny sought payment from high-profile toymaker MGA Entertainment, alleging that dolls in the company’s “LOL Surprise! OMG” line stole the likeness and style of the OMG Girls, a former rap group comprised of Tiny’s daughter and her friends. MGA has denied stealing the OMG Girls look — brightly colored hair, makeup and clothes — and fired back by accusing T.I. and Tiny of trying to carry out a legal “shakedown” and claiming the OMG Girls stole their own aesthetic from the toymaker’s earlier line of “Bratz” dolls, as well as other popular musical artists.
On Tuesday, jurors in the trial at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana watched a video deposition introduced by T.I. and Tiny’s attorneys in which a consumer said she stopped buying the OMG Dolls because she “did not want to support a company that steals from African Americans and their ideas and profit off of it and don’t give African Americans the profit.”
Attorneys for MGA alleged that the recorded testimony prejudiced the jury by “accusing MGA of racist cultural appropriation” and argued that introducing it during the trial ran afoul of a pre-trial order barring such evidence of alleged “cultural appropriation.” In a motion filed with the court, the attorneys said there was “no unringing this bell.”“Diversity has always been a key value at MGA Entertainment in both our people and our toys.
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