Florida rapper Flo Rida was awarded $82 million in his lawsuit against Celsius energy drinks after a jury found Celsius guilty of breaching an endorsement deal.
The endorsement deal with the rapper ran from 2014 to 2018. Celsius did not pay him the money they owed him at the time and the energy drink was also found guilty of fraudulently hiding information from him.
“Basically, I helped birth this company, and all we was looking for was some trustworthy people who acted as if they were family,” he told The Associated Press. “And then when it comes down to the success of today, they just forgot about me.”
Attorney John Uustal said Flo Rida wants the 1% ownership he was promised and is open to accepting the stock instead of the money.
“He (Dillard) loved the product, and it’s been a very successful four-year relationship,” Uustal said. “There were some benchmarks. He was supposed to get stock when certain things happened. And there became a dispute about whether those benchmarks had been reached. So that’s what this was about.”