Nine months. That’s how long French Montana’s $1 million Richard Mille lawsuit hung over his head before a Nevada federal judge made the case publicly accessible. This week, it finally ended—but not before the rapper got a taste of the one thing money can’t always buy: a quiet exit.
On July 27, attorneys for Obiang, Gato and Montana announced they had “resolved the issues” that led to the case. The filing made clear it’s “not an admission of liability, fault, or wrongdoing by any party”—the kind of legal lip service that changes nobody’s mind about what actually went down. Terms of the deal were not disclosed in filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment. Translation: French and the two Swiss businessmen on the other side worked out a deal they’re both keeping quiet about. Smart move, honestly. Because the facts here were damning enough to stick with him.
Let’s rewind to January 2025, when French borrowed a Richard Mille RM-59-01 from longtime acquaintances Justo Obiang and Samir Gato during Paris Fashion Week. Here’s the setup: while filming promotional content in Egypt in 2024, French had repeatedly asked to swap watches with Obiang, who refused. So French pivoted. Instead of a swap, he asked to borrow the piece for a month. He promised to return the Richard Mille within 30 days and put up a watch of his own as collateral—a diamond-encrusted Mille he claimed was worth $1 million.
The watch never came back. And worse: the collateral watch he left turned out to be counterfeit. When Obiang texted him asking “Are you trying to keep my [watch]?” French allegedly replied “never my bro” and promised to retrieve it from Paris, but failed to ever do so. Then he ghosted.
What made this a real lawsuit—not just a wild celebrity story—was the actual value involved. The watch, originally purchased for about $450,000 in 2016, had increased in value to over $1 million by the time the lawsuit was filed. That’s not chump change. That’s a watch worth more than a house.
When the case was filed on October 17, 2025, it immediately went public, covered extensively by major outlets. In April 2026, French’s legal team tried a Hail Mary—they asked the judge to seal the complaint from public view. French’s lawyers argued keeping the claims public posed a serious reputational risk given how fast coverage around his name spreads and gets distorted, but the judge found no compelling basis to grant that, making clear that embarrassment alone doesn’t justify sealing court files. Essentially, the court told him: You made this bed in public; you can lie in it in public.
French’s defense was straightforward, if not convincing. His attorney Steve Haddad insisted that French accepted the watch as payment for promotional work he did in Egypt at Obiang’s request, not as a loan. But Obiang and Gato’s story—and their texts—painted a very different picture. They weren’t asking for the watch back as a favor; they were suing for fraudulent misrepresentation, conversion, and unjust enrichment, seeking damages of at least $1 million.
What’s telling is that both sides decided nine months was enough. No trial. No jury. Just a settlement that keeps the terms sealed and lets both parties claim some version of victory. Though the parties reached a settlement before the case went to trial, neither side has confirmed the settlement terms, but since the court won’t seal the records, these details will probably be made public.
This case sits in a weird lane—it’s not a beef between rivals, not a label dispute, not even a typical civil case. It’s a window into how luxury goods function as currency in the celebrity world. Watches like the Richard Mille RM-59-01 move between hands like cryptocurrency, except they’re actually worth something and far harder to trace. No contracts. No escrow. Just trust and a phone call. And when trust breaks down, you end up in federal court explaining why you gave someone a fake watch.
French Montana’s got bigger things happening—his engagement to Dubai royal Sheikha Mahra has kept him in the spotlight internationally—but this scandal was a real stain. Not a legal loss, exactly. But not a win either.
The 16BARS take: French Montana walked away from his watch scandal without admitting guilt, which means he probably paid to make it disappear. For two Swiss businessmen claiming their $1M timepiece got stolen and replaced with a fake, that’s as close to justice as they were gonna get. Both sides got quiet about what the settlement cost—and that silence says everything.
