Redeem now - Megan Thee Stallion took the stand on Tuesday to testify against Tory Lanez in his shooting case.
- Lanez faces three criminal charges related to a shooting where Megan suffered foot injuries in 2020.
- Megan said Tuesday she was in "shock" after the shooting because she had considered Lanez close.
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion took the stand to testify in Tory Lanez's trial on criminal shooting charges on Tuesday, emotionally depicting the traumatic night in 2020 when she said Lanez verbally berated her and shot her in the foot.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.The "Stalli" star walked into the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday dressed in a purple power suit for her first day of testimony, addressing questions at the core of the case over why she lied to police about the source of her wounds.
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office charged Lanez in 2020 with assault with a semiautomatic firearm, personal use of a firearm, and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. Last week, Lanez was also hit with a new charge of discharging a firearm with gross negligence relating to the conflict. He faces up to 22 years in prison if found guilty.
Lanez, who showed up to court Tuesday with his son, didn't look in Megan's direction. The rapper, whose birth name is Daystar Peterson, pleaded not guilty and has denied that he shot Megan.
About 20 of Megan's supporters lined the entrance and courtyard of the criminal court, with signs in support of the "Savage" rapper.
In the prosecution's opening statements for the trial on Monday, Deputy DA Alexander Bott said that Lanez and Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, got into an argument the night of the shooting. Bott said Lanez shot Megan in the feet from a car while shouting, "Dance, Bitch!"
On the stand on Tuesday, the Houston rapper admitted that she lied to the police directly after the incident, telling them she stepped on glass, not that she was shot in the foot. By the time she was in the ambulance, after having talked to the police, there was no point in changing her story about stepping on glass, she said, because "people don't believe women."
Megan said that she initially lied to police because she didn't think the "big boy's club" music industry would believe her.
The conflict has become ingrained in pop culture commentary — most recently in Drake and 21 Savage's song "Circo Loco" where Drake accused her of lying — emphasizing a divide in the hip-hop community.
On her November 2020 album, "Good News," Megan took aim at Lanez in her introductory song, "Shots Fired." Over a sample from The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Who Shot Ya?," she rapped about people "lyin' 'bout shootin' a real bitch / Just to save face" with rappers "you chill with."
On September 25, 2020, Lanez dropped a surprise album, "DAYSTAR" where he dissed Megan and claimed on "Money Over Fallouts," that "Megan people tryna frame me for a shootin.'"
"I'm telling on one of y'all's friends and now everybody is gonna hate me," Megan told the court Tuesday. "Every man in a position of power in the music industry has been giving me hell for going on the last 3 years."
She added that due to widespread racial justice protests after the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, she did not want to call on the police for help.
"At this time, we were at the height of police brutality and the situation with George Floyd," Megan said, adding that she didn't know if police would "shoot first" and ask questions later. "I don't wanna see anybody die, I don't wanna die," she said Tuesday.
"In the Black community, in my community, it's not really accepted to cooperate with police," she testified.
Megan will continue testifying Tuesday afternoon.
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