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Grammy-winning star Megan Thee Stallion tearfully told a jury Tuesday how fellow rapper – and ex-lover – Tory Lanez, shot her in the feet with a semi-automatic handgun after he yelled ‘dance b***h.’
The singer, 27, testified against Lanez on the second day of his trial in a packed criminal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, telling jurors: ‘I was so scared.’
Megan revealed that she has nerve damage and is still dealing with the physical repercussions of the alleged shooting – and Lanez immediately offered her $1million to not tell the police what had happened.
And she said she wished she had been shot and killed – because of the immense backlash from the music industry and people online that she’s received following the alleged altercation.
The rapper entered the court today wearing a purple power suit
Megan Thee Stallion took the stand in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday morning, finally confronting Canadian rapper Tory Lanez
Recalling the fateful day, she told the court: ‘I looked back and I saw Tory with the gun and I froze. I was in shock. I’m hearing a gun go off.
‘I wasn’t sure if this was really happening. I looked down at my feet and they were bleeding.’
Dressed in a striking purple pantsuit and heels, Megan cut an imposing figure Tuesday as she took the witness stand just 20 feet away from the accused hip-hop artist who wore a cream-colored suit and white turtleneck shirt.
Lanez, 30 – whose real name is Daystar Peterson – has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of assaulting Megan with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle. He could spend up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
Last week the LA DA added a third felony charge – discharging a firearm with gross negligence – which carries an additional maximum six-year jail term, plus possible deportation for the Canadian-born musician. He’s denied the third charge as well.
Megan – real name Megan Pete – fought back tears as told the jury of eight women and four men Tuesday that before the night of the shooting in 2020, she and Lanez were close friends.
‘We used to hang out all the time, drinking together, going to parties’ said the music artist who won a ‘Best Rap Song’ Grammy last year for her song ‘Savage’
‘When my mother died, I think I was looking for people to fill in the void. I felt like he (Lanez) could be my friend.’
Megan Thee Stallion’s sharing pictures of the injuries her foot sustained after Tory Lanez allegedly shot her
Tory Lanez was dressed in a tan suit as he attends LA Superior Court
When Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta asked Megan, ‘Were you intimate with him?’ shew answer ‘yes.’
‘Were you exclusive?’ Ta then asked. ‘No,’ said Megan.
Ta then questioned Megan about the night of July 12 2020 when she, her assistant and best friend Kelsey Harris and Lanez were all at a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s home in the Hollywood Hills.
Megan was in the pool in a thong bikini when her ‘wig started to come off and I was ready to go,’ she told the court.
She asked Tory if they could leave in his SUV with his driver but ‘he didn’t want to leave. He had attitude’.
When she finally persuaded him to take off, in the car: ‘He still had attitude because he was not ready to leave the party.
‘He said to me “You have to stop lying to your friend (Kelsey).”
‘I know Kelsey had a crush on him (Lanez). He was implying that we we’re both hiding something from her. (On Monday, Lanez defense team claimed Megan had slept with Lanez behind Kelsey’s back).
‘Then everybody got into an argument. Kelsey was saying, “What are you talking about? Lying about what?”
Pausing during an emotional moment, Megan told Ta that being in court Tuesday ‘just doesn’t feel good. I can’t believe I have to come here and do this.’
Megan – real name Megan Pete – fought back tears as told the jury of eight women and four men Tuesday that before the night of the shooting in 2020, she and Lanez were close friends
Lanez pictured in a court sketch on Tuesday
Lanez leaves the courtroom with his child
Continuing her testimony, Megan told the court that in the car, Tory ‘got angry’ and started calling her and Kelsey ‘b****es and ‘h**s.’
She asked Lanez driver to stop and she got out. But realizing she still only had skimpy bathing suit on, she got back in the car where ‘Tory and Kelsey were screaming at the top of their lungs at each other.’
Megan continued: ‘Tory kept telling me basically I wasn’t s**t. He just kept yelling and cursing.’
She asked to stop again and this time when she got out, she told the court: ‘I started walking away and I heard Tory say, ‘dance b***h.’
Asked by Ta to explain exactly what she saw when se looked back toward Lanez, Megan said: ‘Him holding the gun, pointing it at me. Everything was a big blur. I felt pain in both my feet.’
She eventually got back into the SUV and, just before cops pulled the car over, she said: ‘Tory said to us, “Please don’t say anything. I already got caught with a gun before. I’ll give y’all a million dollars. Don’t tell on me.
‘He kept apologizing and asking us not to tell…..I remember thinking, “Why ain’t you worried about how I am – you just shot me.”’
On Monday, Lanez’ defense team suggested that it was Kelsey, not Lanez who fired the gun.
But on Tuesday, Ta asked Megan: ‘Did you see Kelsey Holding the gun that night?’ ‘No,’ said Megan.
‘I wish Tory had shot and killed me if I knew I was going to go through this torture,’ sobbed Megan Thee Stallion, still in the witness box Tuesday afternoon as she recounted to the jury that since the shooting she’d suffered through depression, cruel internet attacks, betrayal and the music business treating her ‘like a sick bird.’
Megan expressed that she wished she was shot and killed because of the backlash she has received from the shooting
She told the court that she found it ‘really difficult’ to give testimony as she ‘sits next to a group who have been spreading misinformation about me.’
‘I get to sit across from Tory. I’m really trying – I don’t like to look weak. I want to come off as a strong woman – I don’t want them to take power away from me.’
Asked by DDA Ta if she remembered how many gunshots there were, she said she didn’t remember, ‘but it felt like it went on forever.’
She cried as she told the court how, after the shooting, she was handcuffed to a gurney and placed in an ambulance which took her to the hospital where a ‘rude, aggressive’ female police officer questioned her as blood seeped from her wounded feet.
‘Nobody cared. I was handcuffed to the bed. It was like I didn’t matter. I felt lonely – like nobody cares about what happens to me right now.’
Saying that her career has been ‘overshadowed’ by the shooting, she blasted the music industry men who ‘never took my side, they took Tory’s side’ – even though her standing in the music business at the time was bigger than his.
‘It’s not about what happened. It’s about who I had sex with. I don’t understand that. I’ve been turned into some kind of villain and he is a victim.
‘Nobody (in the music industry) wants to touch me. It’s like I’m a sick bird.
‘This has messed up my whole life. How could I share my body with someone who could shoot me. I’m embarrassed. I feel disgusted. I feel dirty. I feel like I don’t want to be on this earth any more. I wish Tory had shot and killed me if I knew I was going to go through this torture.’
She also said that she felt ‘betrayed’ by her best friend and assistant Kelsey Harris, ‘because she met with Tory after he shot me.’ She hasn’t seen Kelsey since.
Megan told the jury that since the shooting she has suffered from depression which has adversely affected her relationship with her partner.
‘It’s hard for your partner when you feel sad all the time,’ she said.
She told the court how she has to constantly endure cruel and nasty internet posts that blame her, not Lanez for the shooting.
When police who stopped the SUV asked her what had happed to her feet, she told them she had stepped on broken glass.
She explained Tuesday that she did that because that time in July 2020 was when the Black Lives Matter movement was born following the death of George Floyd.
Megan Thee Stallion at court in Los Angeles. On Monday, Lanez’ defense team suggested that it was Kelsey, not Lanez who fired the gun
Megan pictured in a court sketch today. She said she is still dealing with the physical repercussions of the alleged shooting
‘This was at the height of police brutality. I did not want them to shoot first and ask questions later.
‘In the black community it’s not acceptable to be cooperative with the police. I didn’t want to see anybody die.’
Talking about the hip-hop music industry, Megan added: ‘The whole situation in the industry is like a big boys club. Like I’m telling on one of their friends and now they’re about to hate me.’
Ta showed her a photo of her injured left foot with stitches from the surgery she had that night and, said Megan: ‘I’m still have nerve damage. I cannot feel the left side of my foot.’
She added that Lanez later texted her apologizing and her reaction was: ‘I was sick. Why are you bothering me?’
Under cross examination by defense attorney George Mgdesyan, Megan admitted she ‘lied on national TV’ when she told interviewer Gayle King that she hadn’t had a sexual relationship with Lanez.
And she also conceded that the argument started between her and Lanez in the SUV after the pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house because he talked in front of Kelsey Harris about her sexual relationship with Lanez, whom she knew Kelsey had a crush on.
‘I did not want her to know about the relationship,’ said Megan.
Megan vehemently denied Mgdesyan’s suggestion that she may not have seen Lanez firing the gun at her because she was walking away from the SUV and had her back to him.
She said that when she turned her head back toward the car, ‘I saw him with the gun in his hand, shooting me.’
Of Mgdesyan’s floated scenario that it could have been Kelsey who did the shooting, Megan retorted, ‘I could see him clearly with a gun. Nobody else had a gun, just your client.
‘I don’t know why he shot me, but he shot me.’
Asked why she lied to cops at first, telling them that her feet had been injured by broken glass, she said: ’Snitching is frowned upon in the hip hop community.’
But she changed her mind, she added, and started revealing that her wounds were caused by gunshots from Tory, not broken glass after he started posting ‘false narratives’ about the shooting.
‘I had to defend my name because cause I saw that people were posting that I wasn’t shot.’
Megan denied having a fistfight with Kelsey before the shooting and she scoffed at Mgdesyan suggestion that at the pool party, she was jealous of Lanez’ attention to Kylie Jenner.
‘You were upset with because he was in the pool with Kylie Jenner and that’s why you wanted to leave, correct?
‘Incorrect,’ she shot back.
Before his jury trial even started, Lanez twice ran afoul of the presiding justice, LA Superior Court Judge David Herriford.
First, last April the judge increased his bail amount from $250,000 to $350,000 after finding that Lanez had Tweeted about Megan, violating a protective order he was under that prevents him from making any social media comments about her or coming within a 100 yards of her.
Then, on October 26, Judge Herriford imposed house arrest on Lanez – ordering him to wear a GPS ankle monitor until his trial – after hearing that he allegedly assaulted hip-hop singer and songwriter, August Alsina, 30, in Chicago last September.
Last week, before the jury was selected, at the request of Lanez’ defense team, the judge allowed him to remove the ankle monitor and remain on $350,000 bail for the duration of his trial.
Megan Thee Stallion took the stand in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday morning
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