Megan Thee Stallion faced her alleged attacker, rapper Tory Lanez, in court on Tuesday, emotionally detailing the night she was injured by gunfire and the turmoil she has endured ever since.
“I just don’t feel good,” Megan began her testimony. “I can’t believe I have to come up here and do this.”
The Traumazine rapper, real name Megan Pete, took the stand on day two of the highly-anticipated trial proceedings. Tory Lanez, real name Daystar Peterson, faces three felony charges in association with the July 12, 2020 incident that left Megan Thee Stallion shot in both feet. In addition to the charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, the charge of discharging a firearm with gross negligence was just added to the list the week before the trial began. He faces a maximum of 23 years in prison.
The rap superstar attended court wearing a bold purple suit – the color of which is notably associated with Domestic Violence Awareness.
Mirroring much of what she attested to in her April 2022 appearance on CBS Mornings with Gayle King, Megan explained that an argument sprang up between herself, Lanez, and her then-good friend Kelsey Harris as they left Kylie Jenner’s residence after a small get-together. According to Associated Press, Megan claimed that Lanez, already upset that they were leaving the party at her behest, incited discord between the rapper and her friend by revealing details of their personal relationship, then drew ire from both of them by addressing them as “b*tches and h*es.” Megan says the argument continued to escalate when each artist began insulting the other’s music career.
“Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t sh*t, and I said, ‘Actually, you ain’t sh*t,’” she revealed. “‘This is where you’re at in your career. This is where you’re at with your music,’” she said, noting that she had just done a single with Beyoncé at the time.
“He was just Tory Lanez,” she said.
“I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way,” she said. “He kept yelling and cursing.”
Having grown upset herself, Megan says she demanded to be let out of the car on Sunset Boulevard. According to Billboard, once out, she thought about the fact that she was still in revealing swimwear and on a very busy, well-known street as a woman with a high profile, so she got back into the vehicle and asked to be allowed out of the car on a residential side street instead.
According to reporting from ABC, The “Body” rapper says that as she exited the vehicle and walked away, she turned her head and saw Lanez wielding a gun.
“He was holding the gun pointing at me,” she said. “I started walking away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, bi—!’” she recounted, saying that he then opened fire, striking her in the foot.
“I froze. I just felt shocked. I felt hurt. I looked down at my feet and I see all of this blood,” Megan continued. “I wasn’t really sure if this was happening…everything feels blurry,” she said.
As police arrived on the scene shortly after the gunshots were heard, Megan claims that Lanez begged her not to tell the police what had transpired. “Please don’t say anything, I’ll give you $1 million,” she recounted. Megan says she obliged out of fear of what may happen if she detailed the gun violence to officers, noting the climate post-George Floyd and that there is already a a general distrust of police in both the Black and Hop-Hop communities.
When answering how the incident has impacted her life, Megan began sobbing on the stand.
“I still have nerve damage,” she said, detailing the surgery she had to undergo on her feet after the incident. But she noted that despite her injuries, she is the one that has been demonized in the public consciousness.
“I’m a villain and he’s the victim,” she said through tears, claiming that she was disbelieved by “every man that’s in a position of power that’s in the music industry.”
“I can’t even be happy….I wish he had just shot and killed me,” she revealed, noting that the backlash has caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself.”
“Damn, maybe I should be dead,” she said, sobbing.
