Rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris were back in a California courtroom Tuesday for their third attempt to demand millions of dollars from a toy company they claim ripped off the appearance and “total image” of the all-female musical act OMG Girlz that the couple created in 2009 and co-owned.
In his opening statement, a lawyer for the couple said toy manufacturer MGA Entertainment became a “willful infringer” of the girl group’s colorful hair styles, costumes, and distinctive styling when it designed many of the models in its “L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G.” line of wide-eyed, fashion-forward dolls. Lawyer John Keville said his clients deserved an award “somewhere in the range of $17 million to $25 million,” and he said jurors should expect MGA to engage in “some character assassination” of T.I., a musician known for pioneering the trap genre as well as his various legal woes.
When it was his turn, the lawyer for MGA said the toy company was the victim of a shakedown. “This is nothing more than a money grab and a family hustle,” MGA lawyer Paul J. Loh told the jury selected hours earlier.
As he left court Tuesday afternoon, T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, said he was feeling carefree despite Loh casting him as a central figure of the case. In his opening, Loh played multiple clips from T.I.’s videotaped depositions showing the Atlanta rapper wearing sunglasses indoors and singing “I don’t know” repetitively as a response. The lawyer suggested T.I. wasn’t concerned with the “details” and “facts” of the high-profile case.
“I’m chill. I’m here to support my wife, my daughter, and my nieces. I’m proud of them for standing up for their intellectual property,” T.I. tells Rolling Stone as he walked out of the courthouse in Santa Ana, California, surrounded by Tiny, her daughter Zonnique Pullins — a founding member of OMG Girlz — and the two other members of the group, Bahja “Beauty” Rodriguez and Breaunna “Babydoll” Womack.
The case is a familiar one to the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna. It first went to trial in January 2023, but ended in a mistrial when jurors heard barred testimony accusing the toy company of “racist cultural appropriation.”
The case got its second trial in spring 2023, with the jury handing a victory to MGA Entertainment and its billionaire founder Isaac Larian. T.I. and Tiny were granted a re-trial in September 2023 after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 that the First Amendment didn’t necessarily protect a dog toy company that created a humorous chew toy in the shape and style of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Justice Elena Kagan’s opinion sent the message that consumer confusion should carry more weight than previously thought in such cases of trademark infringement involving expressive works.
In the OMG Girlz case, T.I. and Tiny claim 31 dolls in MGA’s “L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G.” infringe on their girl group’s trademarked image, but their lawyer said Tuesday that he planned to narrow the scope down to less than 10 dolls with “very close associations” to “specific public events and outfits” linked to the OMG Girlz group. “We’re trying to be fair, conservative, and just in this,” Keville told the jury. Still, he noted that MGA collected revenues of $340 million and profit of $100 million from the 31 dolls initially at issue in the case.
MGA’s lawyer used his opening to point out that MGA was making Bratz and Moxie Girlz dolls with brightly colored hair and rockstar styling between 2007 and 2009, well before the launch of the “L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G.” line in the summer of 2019. He showed jurors photos of musicians including Katie Perry, Nicki Minaj, and “even Cyndi Lauper from the 1980s,” saying their brightly colored hair and vibrant, layered costumes from well before 2019 proved “how old this style was.” Loh then showed a photo of the rock group KISS, saying they have a “signature look” that is instantly recognizable due to its consistency. He said the OMG Girlz varied their look significantly over the years.
The legal battle behind the lawsuit started when lawyers for T.I. and Tiny sent a demand letter to MGA in December 2020 that made clear the couple, through their companies Grand Hussle and Pretty Hussle, believed the intellectual property rights of OMG Girlz were being violated. In response, MGA preemptively filed a lawsuit asking the court to step in and confirm it owns the name and image of its dolls. T.I. and Tiny then filed their cross-complaint, claiming MGA misappropriated the name, likeness, and “trade dress” of the OMG Girlz that the group owned and popularized in videos, live shows, red carpet appearances, and cameos on T.I. and Tiny’s reality TV shows on BET and VH1.
As she left the courthouse on Tuesday, OMG Girlz band member Breaunna Womack says she felt confident about winning over the jury. “We’re feeling great about it,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I’m looking forward to telling our story.”