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Ever since Megan Thee Stallion first started building a buzz in 2016, she was destined for fame and fortune. Sadly, drama, controversy, and trauma have walked hand-in-hand with her success. The rapper born Megan Pete continues to deal with the legal nightmare and literal nightmares stemming from a 2020 incident involving Tory Lanez. Megan has accused Tory of shooting at her feet following an argument after a party in Hollywood. Tory has denied this.
“In some kind of way, I became the villain,” Megan said in a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. “And I don’t know if people don’t take it seriously because I seem strong. I wonder if it’s because of the way I look. Is it because I’m not light enough? Is it that I’m not white enough? Am I not the shape? The height? Because I’m not petite? Do I not seem like I’m worth being treated like a woman?”
With a trial set for Fall 2022, here’s what we know so far.
What Happened with Megan Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez
The alleged shooting between Meg and Tory (Daystar Peterson) occurred in July 2020, around 4:30 AM in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Tory and Megan were leaving a party hosted by Kylie Jenner. The two were joined by one of Megan’s friends and Lanez’s bodyguard. An argument ensued, and Megan demanded to be let out of the car. She later told police that Tory shot at her as she walked away.
Initial reports claimed that authorities were called to the scene after shots were fired in the air following an argument in the home. Witnesses told TMZ that an SUV in the same area sped off afterward. After the police got a description of the vehicle, they located it and found both Tory and Megan inside.
Footage taken at the scene showed Megan getting in the back of the police car with bloody feet. She was taken to a local hospital to be treated after she injured her foot stepping on “some broken glass,” but she would later say that was something she told officers because of George Floyd. Minneapolis police officers killed Floyd just two months before this Lanez-Stallion incident, and Megan was worried for the safety of others. Tory was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon inside a vehicle.
Less than two weeks after the incident, Megan went on Instagram Live and said she was “shot…in both of my feet, and I had to get surgery to get the sh*t taken out, to get the bullets taken out. And it was super scary.” She didn’t name her shooter but shared that she was traumatized by the incident. Oh Lord, I didn’t think I was going to cry. But yeah, I had to get surgery, and it was super scary. Just the worst experience of my life. And it’s not funny. There’s nothing to joke about. It was nothing for y’all to make up stories about,” she told fans.
Fans online quickly made a mockery of Megan through memes and tweets. They doubted if she was really shot, defended Tory and ridiculed her confession. The online hate got too much for her. That August, she went on IG Live to accuse Tory. “Yes…Tory shot me,” she said before addressing him directly. “You shot me. and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs, lying and s–t…stop lying.”
Megan said that she was “just trying to get home” from the party and that when the police arrived, the officer was “really aggressive.” “Even though he shot me, I tried to spare him,” said Megan, citing George Floyd. “Why the fuck would I tell [the police] somebody got a gun in this car and this n—- shot me? So I can get shot, you can get shot, she can get shot, he can get shot?”
Tory denied shooting Meg before and after her August 2020 IG accusation. In September 2020, he released DAYSTAR, an album that included “Money Over Fallouts,” a track in which he accused Megan of “tryin’ to frame me” and she “had the nerve to write that statement on an affidavit/Knowing I ain’t do it, but I’m coming at my truest.” The entire album was Tory’s response to the accusations, and many critics refused to review it.
“Tory says he still has feelings for Megan, but if he truly cared about her, he wouldn’t have released an entire project attempting to make money off of her trauma,” Complex wrote about the album. “Tory Lanez released a 17-track tirade exploiting Megan’s pain, all in hopes to salvage his career and win favor from men who are just as fragile as him. Based on the project’s status atop the iTunes charts, and the harassment in Megan’s Instagram comments, it appears he found enough of them to believe his story. The circumstance is another indictment on patriarchy.”
Megan would deny ever having a relationship with Tory beyond a friendship.
In October 2020, Tory was officially charged with one felony count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm – personal use of a firearm – and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. The defendant also faces a gun allegation and that he personally inflicted great bodily injury. He pleaded not guilty.
“[Time] will [tell] … and the truth will come to the light,” Tory tweeted on Oct. 9, 2020, a day after he was charged. “I have all faith in God to show that … love to all my fans and people that have stayed true to me & know my heart … a charge is not a conviction. If you have supported me or meg thru this, I genuinely appreciate u.” Later that month, he went on IG Live to deny the charges more. Megan responded to this by saying that Tory was “genuinely crazy.”
Tory has tried to get the case against him dismissed, but the charges were upheld in December 2021, per the Los Angeles Times. In July 2021, DaBaby – who had worked with Megan on the song “Cry Baby” but had fallen out with her – brought Tory out onstage during his set at Rolling Loud Miami, which took place right after Megan performed at the festival. The two performed their collab, “SKAT,” before doing a cover of Megan’s song, “Cash Shit.” DaBaby would then go on his now-infamous homophobic rant, and the disrespect towards Megan would get lost in the shuffle.
Megan spoke about the incident for the first time when she sat down with Gayle King in April 2022. “It was an argument because I was ready to go, and everybody else wasn’t ready to go. But that’s, like, normal friend stuff,” said Megan, per CBS News. “I never put my hands on anybody. I never raised my voice too loud. It shouldn’t have got this crazy. The argument was with the two people in the back seat. So I asked the driver to pull the car over. Like, I’m done with this. And I should have stayed out of the car. Like, I should have not gotten back in the car. And they was like, ‘Megan, just get back in the car. We’re almost there.’ And, like, just, ‘Get back in.’ So I get back in the car. It’s… getting worse.”
“So I get out of the car, and it’s like everything happens so fast,” Megan told King. “And all I hear is this man screaming. And he said, ‘Dance, bitch.’ And he started shooting. And I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, he shot a couple of times. And I was so scared.”
“He is standing up over the window shooting,” said Megan. “And I didn’t even want to move. I didn’t want to move too quick,” the rapper said. She told King that at the time, she thought, “I don’t know if he’s gonna shoot something that’s, like, super important. I don’t know if he could shoot me and kill me.”
Tory immediately began to apologize to Megan after the alleged shooting and offered everyone “a million dollars if y’all don’t say nothing.”
In June 2022, Megan mourned the connection she had with Tory. The two had bonded over both losing their mothers. “I thought we had a real connection,” she told Rolling Stone. “I thought he knew me. And I never thought he would’ve shot at me at all,” she said. “I never put my hands on this man. I never did anything to him. There was an argument. People argue every day. Friends argue every day.”
The Evidence
As of June 2022, the information in the case has not been made public. The trial over the incident is set for Sep. 14, 2022. Tory faces up to 22 years in prison.
The medical report from the shooting claims that doctors found three major bullet fragments in Megan’s feet after Tory allegedly shot her, per Page Six. Megan was brought to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on July 12, 2020. She was admitted under a pseudonym and was “alert,” “oriented,” and “breathing comfortably,” according to Page Six. She had a “small wound” to her posterior ankle with “no active bleeding” before a more in-depth evaluation.
Megan told Rolling Stone that she had “to get the surgery the same night [as the alleged shooting]” and that she stayed in the hospital for about four days. “Then I was in New York for a while. Both of my legs wrapped up. I could not walk. I still have bullet fragments in my feet right now.”
In April 2022, Tory was reportedly handcuffed during a court hearing after a judge ruled that he violated a protective order by talking about Meg on social media. Prosecutors also expressed concern over DJ Akademiks tweeting in February 2022 that “Tory Lanez DNA WAS NOT found on the weapon in the Meg Thee Stallion case,” information that was both wrong and not made to the public. PolitiFact notes that during the pre-trial hearing, no one said that Tory’s DNA was not found on the weapon.
Tory’s lawyer, Shawn Holley, “confirmed the swab on the gun came back ‘inconclusive’ with four contributors while the magazine swab ‘excluded’ Lanez,” according to Rolling Stone’s Nancy Dillion. Because of this second-hand account, fans argued online that either the swab didn’t have Tory’s DNA on it or that Tory never submitted his DNA, per Uproxx.
Until the trial begins in September 2022, all “evidence” presented so far is in the court of public opinion.
