Rob Kardashian’s disputed claim he reached a binding settlement agreement with Blac Chyna to end her “revenge porn” lawsuit was rejected by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday. That means Chyna’s allegation Kardashian illegally posted private naked photos of her on Instagram in July 2017 is back on track, barreling toward jury selection set to begin Monday in a public civil trial that Kardashian had hoped to avoid.
The denial of Kardashian’s motion to enforce settlement was confirmed in a minute order posted on the court’s website Thursday evening.
Lawyers for the sole Kardashian brother had tried to convince the judge that Chyna should be held to an alleged deal struck by email on May 23. The purported pact involved Chyna saying she would dismiss the revenge porn case if Kardashian, 35, resolved a separate civil case against the former couple without Chyna having to pay a dime.
“The deal was, ‘If you can somehow do it, if you can somehow make the [other] case go away, we’ll dismiss this revenge porn case.’ And we detrimentally relied on that. We took a lot of action, a lot of energy to make it happen,” Kardashian lawyer Todd Eagan argued at a morning hearing. “I have the executed dismissal of the [other] case.”
Chyna’s lawyer, Lynne Ciani, argued no such deal was ever finalized. She scoffed at Eagan’s claim he “relied” on the May 23 email as a “confirmed” settlement.
“The reliance is absurd. In fact, it’s contrary to what actually happened,” she said. “If there was an agreement on May 23, why the heck is Mr. Eagan having discussion on May 27, where again, we’re discussing an amount? We’re discussing settlement of this case only, and he’s asking for credit on the [other] case, and as I luckily confirmed in writing on May 28, we were to give zero dollars credit for the [other] case being dismissed.”
Both sides said they had hoped the case would settle for the benefit of the couple’s young daughter, Dream. But Ciani said her client, born Angela White, floated a dollar amount that could make that happen, and Kardashian rejected it.
“Plaintiff is ready to go forward on Monday, and we will go forward,” Ciani said.
“The reason Mr. Kardashian wants to settle this case, and I think it’s important for the court to understand, is that he has a small child with Ms. White, a girl. And this is the type of trial that will have to deal with a lot of very sensitive issues. That is the reason Mr. Kardashian wanted to settle this case. He doesn’t want in a year or five years, 10 years, his daughter to read about [the] fight between her parents that is going to involve sexually explicit images,” Eagan said, asking the judge to order the parties to a settlement judge.
Ciani said her client no longer had any “trust” in the settlement process after Kardashian tried to enforce a non-agreement.
“There is a small daughter involved here. In fact, that’s why plaintiff is moving forward with this case. She wants her daughter to know that it’s not OK to have nude photos posted against your will, no matter who that person is,” Ciani said.
Chyna first sued Kardashian in 2017 with claims his “revenge porn rant” was a form of domestic abuse. “Rob Kardashian is an abuser intent on destroying Angela White, the mother of his baby, who left him in 2016,” her original complaint reads. It says Kardashian posted private photos of Chyna’s genitals, buttocks, and nipples to his nine million Instagram followers in a “vicious social media tirade designed to hurt and publicly shame Ms. White.”
Kardashian’s account was suspended, and he later apologized through his lawyer, but Chyna sued, adding other claims involving alleged domestic violence and accusing Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kyle Jenner, and Khloé Kardashian of trash-talking her to TV executives and effectively killing her E! reality show Rob & Chyna.
A judge eventually severed the claims against Rob Kardashian from the claims against his mom and sisters. Jurors found in favor of the Kardashian women at a separate trial in April that involved testimony from Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kris Jenner, and Khloé Kardashian.