In a fiery Instagram Live session on Thursday night, Megan Thee Stallion claimed that rapper Tory Lanez is indeed the person who shot her in a July 12 incident in Los Angeles.
In the early hours of that day, Lanez was arrested for possessing a concealed weapon; Megan and two other people were in the vehicle with him at the time of the arrest, although the shooting took place beforehand.
“Yes, this n—a Tory shot me,” she says. “You shot me, and you got your publicist and your people to [talk to] these blogs, lying and sh–. Stop lying!”
Later in the session, she says that she did not tell law-enforcement officers that Lanez was the shooter because of recent police violence.
“I didn’t tell the police nothing because I didn’t want us to get in no more trouble,” she says.
Megan, 25 (real name: Megan Pete), has gradually revealed details of the incident in a series of social media posts over the past few weeks; on Thursday, she posted photos of her injured foot on Instagram but deleted them a few hours later.
Megan, Lanez, his bodyguard, and an unidentified woman who is speculated to be Megan’s close friend Kelsey Nicole had attended a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood home earlier in the evening. The four were pulled over by police after a report of gunfire outside a second residence; a witness described the car they were traveling in. While initial reports said Megan had cut her feet on broken glass inside the car, she later claimed she was shot, but without identifying the gunman, who was widely suspected to be Lanez.
Lanez, whom Megan was said to be dating, was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. Surveillance video footage of the arrest shows Megan limping from the SUV, leaving bloody footprints. Nicole said in an Instagram post last month that she was present in the car at the time, but was not the shooter.
“I tried to keep the situation off the internet but you draggin’ it,” Megan begins in Thursday’s IG session, unspooling a series of explanations Lanez’s supporters have apparently made in the wake of the incident. “Motherf—ers [claiming that] I hit him — I never hit you! Motherf—ers are like, ‘She mad because he’s trying to f— with Kylie [Jenner] — no, I wasn’t.
“There’s only four mother—ers in the car: me, you, my homegirl and your security — everybody in the car is arguing,” she continues. “I’m in the front seat, he’s in the back. I get out the car, I’m done arguing, I’m walking away.
“This n—a, from the backseat, starts shooting me! I didn’t get cut on no glass! Let me tell you why they saying that. There’s a witness – when the police came… this did not happen at Kylie’s house, this happened damn near back at the house I was staying at.
“The police come, I’m scared — the police [have been] killing Black people for no reason. They were really aggressive — you think I’m about to tell the police that we n—as got a gun in the car?”
Surveillance footage of the arrest shows Lanez, the unidentified woman, and later Megan lying spread-eagled on the ground near the vehicle, surrounded by multiple police cars with a helicopter hovering overhead.
“If you wanna tell the truth, I saved this n—a,” she says.
A representative for the Los Angeles Police Department told Variety on Thursday night that there has been no update in the investigation into the incident, which began last month based on Megan’s claims in an earlier Instagram post. “On July 24, our office asked law enforcement for further investigation before making a filing decision on a charge of felony assault with a semiautomatic firearm – personal use of a firearm,” against [Lanez],” reads a statement from the district attorney’s office.
Lanez, 28, a Canadian citizen whose real name is Daystar Peterson, has kept a low profile since the incident. Reps for Megan and Lanez did not immediately respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.
In a cover interview with Variety nine days after the shooting, Megan declined to discuss details but did say:, “I’m not the type of person who can stay down for a long time. I don’t like to be sad or keep myself in a dark place, because I know it could be the worst thing happening, but the pain and the bad things don’t last for long.” That sentiment is reflected in Wednesday’s comment, “Why are y’all so upset that I don’t wanna be in the bed sad?”
In the interview, she also discussed her approach to social media, which may explain why her reps have said so little about the incident. “It’s nothing that’s planned out,” she said. “I just get online, and my team doesn’t even know until they see it and, ‘Oh sh–, look at Megan.’”
The incident has done little to slow her fast-rising career. She and Cardi B released the smash single “WAP” earlier this month, and Megan told Variety she hopes to release her debut full-length album by the end of this summer.
