Megan Thee Stallion to Face Tory Lanez in Shooting Trial Today: ‘I Want Him to Go to Jail’

Opening statements in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case will finally begin today, well over two years after Tory Lanez allegedly shot the rapper in her feet. It’s an incident that’s loomed large over Megan’s meteoric rise, and one that left both physical and emotional scars, as she told Rolling Stone in a cover story earlier this year.

“I thought we had a real connection,” she said of Lanez while fighting back tears. “I thought he knew me. And I never would’ve thought he would’ve shot at me at all.”

She added, “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 incident allegedly occurred early in the morning on July 12, 2020. Megan, Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson), and Megan’s former best friend, Kelsey Harris, were in a Cadillac Escalade after leaving a gathering at Kylie Jenner’s house when an argument broke out. Megan claimed the argument caused her to get out of the vehicle, at which point Peterson allegedly shouted, “Dance, b****!” and began shooting at her feet. 

Megan initially told police she stepped on glass, fearful of how the cops might react if they knew there was a gun. Eventually, it did become clear that a shooting had taken place, and Peterson was arrested for carrying a concealed firearm; but specific details were scarce. Megan has said that she was trying to protect Peterson at first by keeping details private, but a steady drip of memes and gossip about the circumstances surrounding the shooting prompted her to share her side of the story.

“You shot me, and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs lying,” Megan said on Instagram Live on Aug. 20, 2020. 

Peterson was later charged with one felony count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and another for carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. Just last week, he was hit with a third felony charge of discharging a firearm with gross negligence. Peterson has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. 

Megan’s road to recovery after the alleged shooting was long. As she told Rolling Stone, she actually got surgery that same night as the alleged incident and remained in the hospital for several days. After she was discharged, she recalled, “Both of my legs wrapped up. I could not walk. I still have bullet fragments in my feet right now. I was very scared that I was not able to be Megan Thee Stallion no more. And I was f***** up.”

Through physical therapy, Megan regained her ability to walk, but the emotional toll of the alleged incident weighed heavily on her, a mix of nightmares, embarrassment, and self-blame. 

“I feel shame, a little bit, because even after he shot me, I still was thinking about everybody else in the car,” she said. “I thought everybody in the car was my friend, [and] the whole time, that’s not how they thought of me. That’s what really hurts.”

On top of all that has been the very public discourse about the incident, as well as additional rumors and allegations about the circumstances surrounding it — some of which Peterson has helped boost. On both social media and in song, Peterson has claimed he was framed and alluded to romances with both Megan and her former friend Harris. 

He also boosted DJ Akademiks’ now-deleted tweet that claimed court proceedings had confirmed Peterson’s DNA wasn’t found on the gun recovered from the scene. Akademiks also claimed that he’d seen unreleased evidence that ostensibly absolved Peterson, prompting Peterson’s lawyer to insist his client hadn’t provided Akademiks with any evidence (because Peterson encouraged Akademiks on Twitter, he was still briefly taken into custody for violating court orders).

“In some kind of way, I became the villain,” Megan told Rolling Stone of the hate and suspicion towards her. “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?” 

Of Peterson’s actions since the alleged shooting, she added, “I feel like you’ve already tried to break me enough. You’ve already shot me. So, why are you dragging it out like this? Like, what else? Have you hated me this much the whole time, and I didn’t see it?’”

As for the outcome she hopes the trial will produce, Megan is crystal clear: “I want him to go to jail. I want him to go under the jail.”