Kim Kardashian has scored another victory in her legal battle with a man who sued her over accidentally posting his photo on social media.
Kardashian, 45, was awarded $167,000 out of the $186,000 she requested in legal fees from Ivan Cantu, according to court docs obtained by Us Weekly on Monday, May 11.
TMZ was first to report the news.
A judge previously dismissed Cantu’s case in November 2025, siding with Kardashian. Weeks later, the Skims founder filed court paperwork demanding that Cantu cover her legal fees.
Cantu attempted to shut down the request, claiming that he would be financially ruined if he had to pay. He also argued that Kardashian, who has a net worth of over $1 billion, did not need the money due to her wealth. The judge ultimately sided with Kardashian for the second time.
Cantu, who is based in New York, sued the Kardashians star in February 2025 after she accidentally posted photos of him on her Instagram page. She meant to post photos of a Texas man with the same name who was convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to death.
“[Kardashian] played an important role in advocating for [Texas-based] Mr. Cantu,” the reality star’s attorney explained in response to the lawsuit. “Over the course of approximately ten days in February 2024, [Kardashian] and her team posted a series of ‘stories’ regarding Mr. Cantu — approximately 16 in all — on [Kardashian’s] Instagram account. Of these 16 stories, one story posted two days before Mr. Cantu’s execution mistakenly used an image of the plaintiff in this action, a New York-based project manager whose name is also Ivan Cantu.”
The prisoner whom Kardashian posted about was ultimately executed on February 28, 2024.
In his initial filing, Cantu alleged that Kardashian’s posts containing his photo caused him emotional distress, loss of sleep and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In her response, Kardashian argued that the claim had no merit and that the photo mistake was corrected within hours of being posted. She also alleged that she apologized to the New York-based Cantu for the incident.
“It was a simple mistake of using the public photo of another man with the same name to promote Kim’s longstanding commitment to the cause of criminal justice reform,” Kardashian’s lawyer Michael Rhodes told Us Weekly in a statement in February 2025. “The image was taken down almost immediately once the error was discovered. We’d prefer to solve this without litigation, but of course will defend Kim as needed.”
Kardashian’s legal team claimed in court docs that Cantu’s lawsuit was an “attempt to cash in on a mistake that occurred in connection with, and as a direct result of, [Kardashian’s] exercise of her constitutional rights of free speech and petition.”
