Megan Thee Stallion appeared in Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday (Dec. 13) on the second day of the closely-watched trial over whether or not Tory Lanez shot her within the foot on July 12, 2020.
The rapper was met with a legion of her supporters on the Clara Shortridge Foltz Prison Justice Heart, a number of of whom held a giant, black “WE STAND WITH MEGAN” banner throughout a rally that was organized by non-profit The Gathering of Justice along side a number of ladies’s and violence prevention organizations. The Grammy winner arrived on the courthouse carrying a blunt shoulder bob and daring purple swimsuit — a becoming colour alternative that symbolizes consciousness of home violence, particularly towards ladies.
As soon as on the stand, Stallion’s voice cracked after L.A. County Deputy District Legal professional Kathy Ta, one of many prosecutors on the case, requested her if she knew the defendant Lanez (actual identify Daystar Peterson). “Sure…. We used to hang around on a regular basis,” mentioned Stallion (actual identify Megan Pete), earlier than admitting the 2 had an “intimate” however not unique relationship.
Lanez, carrying a cream patterned swimsuit and white turtleneck, listened intently all through Stallion’s testimony. He faces three felony charges: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a car; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, the latter of which was added to the list of charges forward of the trial final week. If convicted on all three counts, Lanez faces 22 years in jail.
Ta went on to ask Stallion about her relationship with Kelsey Harris — whom the rapper recognized as her “finest buddy since freshman yr of faculty” who later turned her assistant on the finish of 2019 — earlier than asking what transpired the night time of July 11, 2020, when the 2 ladies, together with Stallion’s stylist EJ King, attended a pool occasion at Kylie Jenner‘s home. Stallion recalled the night’s occasions in entrance of the packed gallery, the place Desiree Perez, CEO of Stallion’s administration firm Roc Nation, sat subsequent to activist Tamika Mallory. Lanez’s household was additionally current within the room.
“I simply don’t really feel good,” mentioned Stallion, 27, when requested by prosecutors if she was “nervous” to testify. “I can’t consider I’ve to come back up right here and do that.”
Throughout her time on the stand, the Traumazine MC shared her facet of the story as prompted by prosecutors, recalling that she had texted Lanez to come back to the “small” gathering at Jenner’s dwelling, the place the make-up mogul was joined by associates and her mom Kris Jenner’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble. By the point Lanez arrived on the residence, Stallion mentioned she, Harris, Jenner and Lanez had been the one folks remaining, and the foursome frolicked within the pool collectively. “My hair [wig] was beginning to come off and I needed to go,” mentioned Stallion, noting that Lanez “had an perspective as a result of he wasn’t prepared to go away the occasion.” In the end, Stallion, Harris, Lanez and his safety guard Jauquan Smith, who had pushed him to Jenner’s home, left the occasion collectively.
Stallion mentioned stress initially rose within the automobile when Lanez, 30, allegedly informed her, “You must cease mendacity to your buddy” relating to their sexual relationship. Stallion, who mentioned she knew Harris had a crush on the R&B singer, “didn’t need her to know I had handled him in any type of method.” Whereas she mentioned Harris was offended after studying in regards to the relationship, Lanez provoked the ire of each ladies when he known as them “bi—es and h–s,” Stallion claimed. Rising annoyed, Stallion says she requested to be let loose of the automobile on Sundown Boulevard however shortly realized she was “actually on the peak” of her profession and solely carrying a “thong [bikini]” in the midst of the “most well-known” road in L.A. To presumably keep away from drawing any undesirable consideration, Stallion says she bought again contained in the automobile, solely to ask to be let loose once more on a facet road not too removed from the primary cease as a result of she was “over it.”
“I began strolling away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, bi—!’” she tearfully recounted in entrance of the jury, including that she noticed Lanez pointing a gun at her. “I froze. I simply felt shock. I felt harm. I seemed down at my toes and I see all of this blood,” she mentioned earlier than explaining that she fell to the bottom and crawled to a close-by driveway. “Every thing feels blurry,” she continued, earlier than recalling that Harris and Lanez ran into one another on their method over to her. “Tory was principally telling me I wasn’t sh–, and I mentioned, ‘Really, you ain’t sh–. That is the place you at in your profession. That is the place you at together with your music.’ And I really feel like that basically rubbed him the flawed method,” she claimed.
The magnitude of each rappers’ careers was a degree of rivalry within the listening to. At one level, Ta requested if Stallion’s profession on the time was “larger” than Lanez’s and he or she answered “sure.” “I had simply achieved a track with Beyoncé,” she informed the jury excitedly, referring to the remix of “Savage,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its arrival in April 2020, simply two months shy of the taking pictures. Lanez visibly furrowed his eyebrows when she added, “He was simply Tory Lanez,” however that the extremely publicized incident “has gained him a variety of reputation.”
Between sobs, Stallion argued that “each man that’s able of energy that’s within the music trade” didn’t need to consider her facet of the story. “I’m a villain and he’s the sufferer,” she claimed. Based on Stallion, that’s one of many the reason why, instantly after the incident, she informed law enforcement officials that she reduce her foot stepping on damaged glass. It was solely 4 days after the taking pictures, throughout a telephone interview with Detective Ryan Stogner, that she alleged she had suffered a gunshot wound, she mentioned. “This was the peak of police brutality and George Floyd,” she testified, including that she feared everybody would wind up lifeless if she informed officers Lanez had shot her. “I didn’t need to see anyone die. I didn’t need to die.”
Stallion additionally tearfully admitted to initially not being sincere about her intimate relationship with Lanez as a result of “it’s disgusting at this level. How may I share my physique with any individual who may shoot me?” She added that her present companion, fellow rapper Pardison Fontaine, is “embarrassed” over the continuous protection of Stallion and her earlier entanglements. “I can’t even be comfortable….I want he had simply shot and killed me,” she continued.
The courtroom noticeably stiffened as soon as Lanez’s lead lawyer, George Mgdesyan, started interviewing Stallion as a part of the cross-examination. After citing Stallion’s CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King from April 2022, throughout which the rapper claimed she didn’t have an intimate relationship with Lanez, Stallion admitted to the jury that she had lied on nationwide tv in regards to the nature of their relationship. The protection additionally offered her with the police report from her preliminary interview with Detective Stogner on July 16, 2020, in an effort to refresh her reminiscence that she had informed the police “this wasn’t the primary time” she had “backdoored” Harris.
“I’ve by no means been with anybody Kelsey’s been with,” she informed Mgdesyan, contradicting the lawyer’s opening statement from Monday when he argued Stallion had additionally been romantically concerned with fellow rapper DaBaby and NBA participant Ben Simmons proper after Harris had dated each males.
Whereas making an attempt to construct a timeline of the July 12, 2020, incident, Stallion and Mgdesyan engaged in a heated change about what she remembered, together with what time she and her group arrived and left Jenner’s home, the geographical location of the place the taking pictures occurred and Lanez’s whereabouts in relation to the SUV when he shot her. When the protection requested if she didn’t bear in mind what Lanez was carrying that night time as a result of she was intoxicated, Stallion shot again by saying she didn’t bear in mind as a result of the incident was now two years previous.
Stallion and Mgdesyan talked over one another when the protection confirmed totally different photographs of the bloody baggage and Louis Vuitton bag from the again seat of the SUV, the place Stallion and Harris had been allegedly sitting proper after the taking pictures happened. When Mgdesyan requested Stallion if the black Louis Vuitton bag was hers or if she owned one much like it, she merely replied, “I’ve a variety of baggage,” main the jury and gallery to chuckle amongst themselves in a short second of levity.
The temper shortly tensed once more when Mgdesyan once more requested Stallion why she didn’t inform the officers on the hospital that she had been shot. “Snitching is frowned upon within the hip-hop neighborhood,” Stallion replied. That led the protection to swiftly quote a snippet of her Instagram Live video from Aug. 20, 2020, when the “WAP” rapper named Lanez as her alleged shooter publicly for the primary time. The Houston-bred artist seemed visibly shocked when Mgdesyan mentioned aloud, “However I’m not finna let y’all hold enjoying in my face, and I’m not finna let this n—a hold enjoying in my face, both.” Mgdesyan just isn’t Black and recited the uncensored model of the N-word, main Stallion to request that he repeat the total line. Upon doing so, Mgdesyan once more used the uncensored model of the phrase.
Lanez straightened his swimsuit jacket and appeared pressed when the vast majority of Stallion’s seven-minute IG Dwell was played from this YouTube video, wherein Stallion is seen telling almost 90,000 reside viewers, “Sure, this n—a Tory shot me. You shot me! And you bought your publicists and your folks going to those blogs, mendacity and sh–. Cease mendacity! Why lie? I don’t perceive. I attempted to maintain the scenario off the web, however you dragging it! You actually f—ing dragging it!”
Stallion grew upset once more through the redirect examination, wiping her nostril and unable to carry again tears when describing how the alleged taking pictures has impacted her life and profession within the two years since. “Individuals don’t even need to contact me,” she wept, including that her friends within the music trade seen Stallion — a moniker suggesting a sturdy horse — like a “sick chook.” Her desolation grew extra obvious whereas figuring out numerous social media posts that she’s seen within the aftermath of the incident, together with one which learn, “Megan Wants To Be Shot and Killed.”
Coming ahead with who allegedly shot her, Stallion testified, has finally prompted her to “lose my confidence, lose my associates, lose myself. Rattling, perhaps I must be lifeless,” she cried.
The trial will resume Wednesday (Dec. 14).
