Celebrity News May 13, 2026
Rihanna Shooting Suspect Wants New Lawyer amid Mental Capacity Concerns
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Rihanna’s alleged shooter Ivana Lisette Ortiz was in court on Wednesday morning.
At the hearing, cameras were not allowed while Ortiz faced the judge.
Ortiz requested a new attorney to represent her after her lawyer raised concerns about her mental capacity.
Despite her request, her lawyer asked for a welfare check, especially "an additional inquiry of competence” for his client, who appeared in shackles while sporting an orange jumpsuit.
The judge ruled that there was "not substantial evidence of incompetency” to delay the trial.
When the judge asked Ortiz if she agreed to preliminary hearing for July 7, she responded, "No, I’m not waiving my time.”
A start date will be determined later today.
In March, Ortiz pleaded not guilty after she was charged with one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic, and three counts of shooting an inhabited dwelling or camper.
Earlier that month, the D.A.’s office released a press release on the shooting.
The D.A.’s office stated, "On March 8, at about 1:20 p.m., Ortiz is accused of driving up to the front of a home belonging to Rihanna... and firing a semiautomatic weapon multiple times at the house. There were people on the musician’s property as well as an adjacent house, but no one was struck by gunfire."
Now, new court docs, obtained by The New York Times, are revealing more details about what went down.
According to the docs, Rihanna pushed her boyfriend A$AP Rocky to the ground of an Airstream trailer when she realized that a shooting was happening outside.
After pulling the curtains and seeing the bullet-riddled windows, she told A$AP, “They shooting at us.”
The police also interviewed Rihanna’s chef, who saw Ortiz’s face when she was parked outside the singer’s home. She noted that Ortiz appeared to be smirking “as if she was about to do something naughty”
When Ortiz was arrested and taken to a police station, she told detectives, "I would like to say that I wasn’t attempting murder. But that’s all I wanted to say.”