A former friend of A$AP Rocky testified Wednesday that the rapper pulled a gun on him during an altercation in Hollywood and then fired at him soon afterward during another confrontation.
The testimony came during a hearing in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom in which a judge may determine later this month whether there is sufficient evidence to determine if the 35-year-old rapper — whose real name is Rakim Mayers — should stand trial on two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The charges include allegations that Mayers, now 35, personally used a firearm during the pair of confrontations the evening of Nov. 6, 2021.
Terell Ephron testified that he agreed to meet with Mayers that night because the two had known each other since high school, though he had overheard the man he called “Rocky” threaten in a telephone call a day earlier that he was going to beat Ephron up.
“Were you expecting a physical confrontation?” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec asked.
“No,” responded Ephron, who has also been known by the name A$AP Relli.
He testified that he first encountered Mayers outside a parking garage in an encounter partially caught on surveillance video and that Mayers pulled a gun from his waistband, put it toward his stomach and said, “I’ll kill you right now.”
He said the altercation seemed like it was “forever,” but was likely just seconds. He told the judge that he decided to follow Mayers after seeing another man in the rapper’s entourage apparently putting a pocket knife away.
Ephron — who testified that he thought the rapper had become “big-headed” as a result of his success — said he told Mayers that he had “failed everybody” and that nobody was brave enough to tell him what they thought.
“I just wanted him to hear my side,” he said, telling the judge that he was never going to see him again.
Ephron said the man he knew as “Rocky” turned around and shot at him, saying that he believed that his left hand had been grazed by the gunfire. The second confrontation was also caught from a distance on grainy surveillance video.
During a contentious cross-examination by defense attorney Joe Tacopina, Ephron acknowledged that he didn’t notify the police right away because he wanted to talk to an attorney but said he did return to the scene that night to photograph and collect two casings from the shooting. He said he went to police on Nov. 8, 2021.
Ephron disputed the defense attorney’s contention that he was jealous of Mayers’ success.
He said he waited until he got to New York to go to a hospital to seek medical treatment for his three injured knuckles, saying that he was in pain.
The two men exchanged a series of text messages, including one in which Ephron wrote Mayers, “U should’ve killed me,” and Mayers responding to him that he should “stop making” things up, according to evidence presented during the hearing.
Ephron, the prosecution’s first witness, denied that he had ever asked any of Mayers’ friends, associates or managers to pay him millions of dollars to make the criminal case disappear.
Mayers’ attorney repeatedly used the word “claim” when asking Ephron about what had happened that night.
The hearing is set to resume Nov. 20.
Mayers — who is free on bond — was arrested in April 2022 at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving on a private plane from Barbados, where he had been on vacation with his then-pregnant girlfriend, singer Rihanna, according to NBC News and TMZ. The couple now has two children.