A$AP Rocky dove from the defense table into the arms of Rihanna on Tuesday as a clerk read the not guilty verdict at his trial on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The Los Angeles courtroom, full of fans of the hip-hop performer and his singing superstar partner, exploded into screaming glee as Rocky and Rihanna embraced and sobbed.
After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for just three hours to reach the verdict that spared Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, a prison sentence that could have run more than two decades.
“Thank y’all for saving my life,” he told the jurors as they left the Los Angeles courtroom.
Amid the chaos, it took the clerk a while to read the second not guilty verdict, though it was very unlikely the jury would split on the counts.
On the eve of the trial, Rocky turned down a prosecution offer of just six months in jail, along with probation and other conditions, if he would plead guilty to one count.
Insisting on his innocence, Rocky decided to gamble that a jury would feel the same. It paid off. The jurors felt at least that there was reasonable doubt of his guilt.
Rihanna cried and hugged the defense lawyers, as did Rocky. She attended the trial sporadically and brought the couple’s two sons — 2-year-old RZA Athelston Mayers and 1-year-old Riot Rose Mayers — for some of the closing arguments.
The verdict came at the height of Rocky’s fame, if not the pinnacle of his music career. The three-time Grammy nominee, fashion mogul and actor has a banner year in the works, and can now look to it without the threat of prison hanging over him. He is scheduled to headline the Rolling Loud music festival in March; he is one of the celebrity co-chairs of fashion’s biggest night, the Met Gala, in May;…
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