Rapper Tory Lanez was sentenced to 10 years in prison today (Aug. 8) for shooting Megan Thee Stallion on July 12, 2020, a crime for which he was convicted last December. The artist, born Daystar Peterson, has been in jail since and was denied a motion for a new trial earlier this year.
Lanez was found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion (real name: Megan Pete) in the feet after they left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Los Angeles home. His attorneys had advocated for a three-year sentence in tandem with probation and rehab, which they said would help him heal from alcohol addiction and childhood trauma. Prosecutors had in turn asked for a 13-year sentence, in part due to Lanez’s violation of three separate pre-trial court orders.
In April, Megan Thee Stallion broke her silence about the incident in a lengthy essay for Elle, in which she said she would no longer address the shooting in the media “for the sake of my mental health. I don’t plan to keep reliving the most traumatic experience of my life over and over again. I’m choosing to change the narrative because I’m more than just my trauma.”
During the trial, she gave tearful testimony about the shooting, which followed an argument with Lanez about their careers and relationships. She said Lanez told her to “dance” before firing at her from the passenger seat of his car, and that Lanez bribed her and another friend who witnessed the shooting $1 million dollars each in exchange for their silence.
“For years, my attacker laughed and joked about my trauma,” she wrote. “For years, my attacker peddled false narratives about what happened on the night of July 12, 2020. For years, my attacker tried to leverage social media to take away my power. Imagine how it feels to be called a liar every day? Especially from a person who was once part of your inner circle.
I could have let the adversity break me, but I persevered, even as people treated my trauma like a running joke,” she continued. “First, there were conspiracy theories that I was never shot. Then came the false narratives that my former best friend shot me. Even some of my peers in the music industry piled on with memes, jokes, and sneak disses, and completely ignored the fact that I could have lost my life. Instead of condemning any form of violence against a woman, these individuals tried to justify my attacker’s actions.”
