LOS ANGELES — A smashed gingerbread house, a phone cord wrapped around the neck and a gun grabbed from a nightstand were at the centre of disputed testimony Wednesday in a trial over former reality television star Blac Chyna’s lawsuit against the Kardashian family.
During all-day testimony in a Los Angeles courtroom, Chyna said she wrapped the charging cord around then-fiance Rob Kardashian’s neck and grabbed his always-unloaded gun in jest on an evening in 2016 when the two were celebrating the renewal of their reality show, "Rob & Chyna." She said she later got justifiably angry when their all-night celebration went sour because of his jealous accusations.
"I smashed a gingerbread house, because I was really upset," she said. "Then I damaged a TV."
The lawyer for the four Kardashian women who are defendants in the case cast all the events as displays of anger and aggression that made them frightened for their son and brother.
"You’re saying to the jury that you stood behind him with a phone cord and wrapped it around his neck, and that was a joke?" attorney Michael G. Rhodes said.
"Yes," answered Chyna, who generally remained composed under heated questioning.
He later asked, "Grabbing a gun is funny?"
"It was a joke," she said.
"To you," Rhodes replied.
"To him too," Chyna said.
In her US$100 million lawsuit, Chyna alleges that Kardashian’s mother Kris Jenner and her daughters Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, who watched the testimony in court, mispresented the events of Dec. 14 and 15, 2016, to get her show cancelled and ruin her TV career.
Chyna and Rob Kardashian had begun dating in January 2016, got engaged in April, and in November had a daughter and began the show together.
Under questioning from her own attorney, Lynne Ciani, Chyna described the gleeful celebration they had on Dec. 14 when the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" spinoff was greenlit for a second season.
"It was exciting, we were throwing money and having fun, being silly," Chyna said. Footage shot for the show of the money-throwing was shown in court.
She testified that she ripped Rob Kardashian’s shirt, "from us like playing and trying to not be sexy and take the shirt off, but just doing silly stuff with my fiance."
Later, he was playing video games and ignoring her when she wrapped the cord around his neck, she said.
"I came up behind him, doing that jokingly," she testified, "to get his attention."
Later, when Rob Kardashian was having a FaceTime conversation in the bedroom, she entered and picked up his gun.
Asked by the defence attorney Rhodes, "What on Earth possesses you to grab a gun?" she replied, "He was already messing with it, that’s why I grabbed it, I was being funny while he was on FaceTime with his friends."
Neither slept that night, Chyna testified.
Rob Kardashian was prone to bouts of jealousy, she said. His doubts about being the father of their newborn daughter, Dream, led to a paternity test that was filmed for the show.
She testified that on the morning of the 15th, he grabbed her phone, shut himself in a closet and searched for signs of communication with other men.
Chyna said she couldn’t handle the axjmtzywccusations and unfair scrutiny anymore.
"In the past there had been a cycle of him taking my phone and posting things from it, and I was really getting sick of it," she said.
She then smashed the gingerbread house and TV, but pressed by the defence, she denied she ever went beyond damaged property.
"Your testimony under oath is that not one time that whole day, did you hit him?" Rhodes asked, his voice rising to a shout.
"Nope," Chyna said.
"Not one time that whole day?"
"Nope," she said.
Chyna testified that she moved out of the house that day.
Rhodes said in his opening statement Tuesday that the relationship ended then, and that was why the producers at the E! network cancelled the show that was all about that relationship.
Chyna’s lawsuit alleges the cancellation came from Kris Jenner telling the people with power over the show that Chyna had physically abused her son, and enlisting her daughters to do the same.
Rhodes suggested Wednesday that she filed the lawsuit to enhance her own celebrity.
"Is this trial a publicity stunt?" he asked.
"No not at all," Chyna said.
"But your career benefits from the attention that you get because of this trial," Rhodes said.
"No not at all," she replied, "it’s actually been very negative."
