Atlanta Hip Hop Mogul T.I. testified Friday that he never expected to be in a federal courtroom, still battling billionaire toymaker Isaac Larian nearly four years after his wife first sent him a cease-and-desist letter alleging that Larian's line of “LOL Surprise! OMG” dolls infringed on the name, image and likeness of the couple's teen pop trio, the OMG Girlz.
The musician, born Clifford Harris, 43, said he had never sued anyone before the $25 million legal battle and believed the two sides would have reached “some sort of resolution” by now.
“I don’t believe for a second that Mr. Larian would allow anyone to disgrace the image and likeness of his daughter, why would he think I would?” T.I. asked rhetorically, referring to his stepdaughter Zonnique “Star” Pullins, a founding member of the OMG Girlz. The group once included Lil Wayne’s daughter Reginae Carter, but quickly evolved into a core three-member lineup that eventually signed to Interscope Records: Pullins, Bahjah “Beauty” Rodriguez, and Breonna “Baby Doll” Womack.
T.I. told the jury that in his opinion, Larian’s company, MGA Entertainment, marketed seven dolls that were “clearly undeniable” infringing on the OMG Girls name and logo. “You can compare these photos and see,” he testified Friday in a Santa Ana, California, courtroom. “Anyone with eyes can see that this image has influenced this doll.” T.I. said his camp narrowed the number of allegedly infringing dolls from 32 to seven specific dolls to focus on “the most undeniable alleged thefts” and not “scrutiny.”
One of the seven dolls, named Chillax, wears a black-and-white two-piece outfit that Tiny described as a “replica” of the outfits worn by the OMG Girlz on their All Around the World tour in 2013. Another doll has long, straight hair that is split in two, one light pink and the other dark black. Prosecutors allege the hairstyle matches Rodriguez’s appearance in the first photo posted to the band’s Instagram account.
While on the witness stand, T.I. recalled how his wife, Tameka “Tiny” Harris, formed the girl group in 2009 to help launch Pullins’ professional singing career. T.I. said he wasn’t heavily involved in management but had a stake in the group and even wrote some of the group’s raps. He said he was surprised when MGA responded to Tiny’s cease and desist letter with a lawsuit seeking a court declaration that MGA had done nothing wrong.
The musician, real estate developer, actor and director — a trap music pioneer who later gained widespread fame with chart-topping hits including “Live Your Life” with Rihanna (2008) and “Blurred Lines” with Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams (2013) — denied MGA’s claim that he filed the lawsuit as a “money grab.” He said he was already wealthy and “blessed.”
“I don’t need to go out and cheat and try to manipulate the truth to make money. I have my own talent, I build my own brands. I run my own companies,” he testified Friday. “I find my time is more valuable than what I could get from a lawsuit. I’d rather focus my time and energy and effort on doing creative things and building brands. I have better things to do than be in a courtroom.”
T.I. testified that he was indeed “moved” by Larian’s story about creating the popular Bratz doll line because his daughter said she wanted a doll that looked like her. (Larian is of Iranian descent.) But T.I. complained about the way he was treated during the eight-hour hearing, claiming he was subjected to racist comments.
“The deposition, as I recall, started off a little bit condescending. Almost, how dare I have the nerve to make a claim against MGA. But specifically, I remember them asking me something about eating fried chicken with waffles, or shrimp and grits. Something that, you know — it rubbed me the wrong way. So, maybe, I took a tone,” T.I. said. His answer was intended to defuse a clip of the deposition that MGA’s attorney played during opening statements. The clip showed T.I. repeatedly singing “I don’t know” as an answer. The attorney suggested that T.I. wasn’t interested in the “details” and “facts” of the high-profile case. T.I. testified Friday that he responded to his frustrations with “humor.”
“I’ve been doing it since school, responding with humor rather than hostility. I feel like it’s easier for me to get my point across with humor rather than hostility. I have a view that if you’re not laughing at life, you’re missing the point,” he said.
T.I. said he believed MGA's attorney, Paul J. Loh, tried to portray OMG Girlz as a financial failure during his opening statement to convince the jury that the group was not worth copying. T.I. said that Bullins was a teenager earning more than $30,000 a year during the height of OMG Girlz's success. He called that respectable given that the group had to pay all of its own expenses before paying its dues.
“In my opinion, I think MGA is trying to portray the OMG girls as failures by saying, ‘They’re so young, why would we want to take them?’ But what makes sense to me is that if I want to get away with taking something from someone, I’m not going to take it from someone who is already known to everyone. I’m going to take something from someone who I feel like no one will notice and probably won’t have a case to sue me in court. That’s plagiarism,” he said.
TI suggested that after Larian asked his team to incorporate the OMG acronym into a product, one of his employees may have “Googled” the acronym and discovered OMG Girlz. “Girls just show up, bring [the look] “They came back to him without explaining where they got them, and now he’s in a lawsuit, not knowing that the designs came from their Google searches for girls. It can be hard to find yourself in that situation. I understand that. But here we are,” Harris testified over an objection from MGA’s attorney that the judge rejected.
In turn, Tenney said on the witness stand Wednesday that she felt “in all sincerity” that many of the MGA dolls were “copies” of the line she created in 2009. She said the trio created a buzz with their signature pink, purple and blue hair and “vibrant” outfits, and that many OMG Girlz fans believed MGA’s line of “LOL Surprise! OMG” dolls was a spinoff. Like her husband, Tenney has denied extortion.
“I’m not here to make money. My husband and I live a very comfortable life. We have a very good life,” Teni, a member of the ’90s band Xscape and writer of the TLC hit “No Scrubs,” said in a previous testimony. “It’s more about the girls. I feel like the girls built a brand, and they work hard for it.”
The current trial represents the couple’s third attempt to convince a jury that they are abuse victims. The first trial ended in a verdict in January 2023, while the second ended in a loss for the couple and was thrown out last year due to a change in the law.
While the new trial is largely a rerun of last year’s proceedings, it differs in the number of dolls in dispute, the amount of money sought — $25 million less than the nearly $100 million — and some of the evidence allowed to reach the jury. In a key ruling in August, U.S. District Judge James Selna said MGA designer and star witness Laura Stevens would be barred from repeating much of the “unflattering” testimony about T.I. that she gave during the second trial. In that testimony, given in May 2023, Stevens said she would never have imitated the OMG Girlz look because of “negative associations” with the Harris family, particularly the so-called “virginity test” that T.I. admitted he once sought for his teenage daughter, Deja.
“After consideration, the court has narrowed the scope of Stevens’ testimony to exclude details of negative behavior,” Judge Selna ruled last month. He said Stevens would not be allowed to describe her personal reaction to an episode of the couple’s VH1 reality show, TI & Tiny: Friends & Familywhich centered on the family conflict that arose after T.I. revealed on a 2019 podcast that he accompanied Deja to the gynecologist so he could confirm that her hymen was still intact.
In her 2019 testimony, Stevens said she “saw” the episode on television and found the plot “disturbing” and “offensive.” “I felt it was sexually abusive to exploit her in that way,” she testified. “I felt it was the opposite of empowering young women.” Stevens also said she was aware of other “negative information” at the time she designed the three dolls accused of abuse. They mentioned allegations of “sex trafficking, drugs, rape of employees and other women from different cities.” She said she learned of the allegations from Shadow room And two major radio stations in Los Angeles.
“The court has the advantage of the passage of time to place this testimony in the context of the full trial and the advantage of actually hearing the testimony that was given. With these considerations in mind, the court will only allow Stevens to testify in general terms that the conduct was negative, and may describe it as antithetical to family values, morally repugnant, or similar terms that the court first judges. Strong general descriptions are sufficient to convey Stevens’ message,” Judge Selna ruled. “The details of the conduct are far more biased than the probative value that is generally superfluous. The balance is heavily tilted in favor of exclusion. The general concept is sufficient.”
Judge Selna had previously ruled that T.I.'s criminal record would be out of the scope of the trial. The musician's legal troubles are well known to many fans and have included allegations against Tiny as well.
like Rolling Stone The Harrises have previously been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women — allegations the couple denies. One accuser, an Air Force veteran, alleges in a pending lawsuit that T.I. and Tenney sexually assaulted her in a hotel room in 2005. The Los Angeles County District Attorney reviewed her claims but declined to file any charges, saying the alleged incident was outside the 10-year statute of limitations. “Without the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence being evaluated, the case is dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations,” the district attorney’s working paper, dated Sept. 14, 2021, and obtained by The New York Times, states. Rolling Stone Reads.
