Megan Thee Stallion: ‘I Wish He Would’ve Just Shot and Killed Me If I Knew I’d Have To Go Through This’

On Tuesday, heartbreaking testimony from Megan Thee Stallion continued well into the afternoon in the trial against Tory Lanez (Daystar Peterson), with the Grammy winner admitting to experiencing suicidal ideations in the wake of the shooting at the center of the proceedings.

“I can’t even be happy,” she told the court. “I can’t hold conversations with people for a long time. I don’t feel like I want to be on this earth. I wish he would have just shot and killed me, if I knew I would have to go through this torture.”

Megan’s testimony began in the morning and laid bare her account of the events of July 12, 2020 and their fallout. On the stand, Megan recounted attending a small pool party at Kylie Jenner’s home with Lanez and her best friend and former assistant, Kelsey Harris. According to Megan, a disagreement broke out when she sought to leave the party and Lanez wanted to stay. “My hair [wig] was starting to come off and I wanted to go,” she explained, noting that Lanez “had an attitude because he wasn’t ready to leave the party.” Ultimately, Megan, Lanez, Harris and a security guard left together. Once inside the vehicle, the fight escalated when Lanez told Megan to “stop lying” to Harris about their relationship. Megan and Lanez had bonded over the loss of their mothers and were occasionally sexually intimate. Harris, who Megan noted had a crush on Lanez, had no knowledge of their sexual relationship, as Megan “didn’t want her to know I had dealt with him in any kind of way.” The already terse exchange worsened when Lanez allegedly began referring to the women as “bitches and hoes,” and the two started to hurl insults about each other’s careers.

“Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t shit, and I said, ‘Actually, you ain’t shit. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.’ And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way. He kept yelling and cursing,” she testified.

As the car approached her home, a frustrated Megan exited the vehicle—still wearing only her swimsuit—and the next thing she recalled was seeing Lanez firing bullets at her from an open window of the car. “I started walking away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, bitch!’” she recounted through tears, adding that she saw Lanez pointing the gun at her. “I froze. I just felt shock. I felt hurt. I looked down at my feet and I see all of this blood.”

Within about five minutes of the shooting, according to prosecutors, Harris texted one of Megan’s security guards, “Help,’’ “Tory shot meg,’’ and “911.” Megan, bleeding from both feet, eventually reentered the vehicle, which was subsequently stopped by Los Angeles police. Body cam footage shown in court confirmed that the vehicle’s occupants—including a limping and bloodied Megan—were told to get out of the car. Ultimately, Megan was taken by ambulance to hospital.

She then revealed, for the first time, that Lanez bribed her to remain silent. “I can’t go to jail, I’m already on probation,” Megan recalled Lanez pleading that night. She added that he told her and Harris, “I’ll give you a million dollars. Don’t tell on me.”

When prompted as to why she was initially dishonest about sleeping with Lanez—to both Harris, and later, Gayle King during a sit down with CBS Mornings—she replied: “It’s disgusting at this point. How could I share my body with somebody who could shoot me?”

She went on to note that the shooting, and publicly naming Lanez as the perpetrator, has not only mentally and emotionally cost her, but ultimately caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself.”

“Damn, maybe I should be dead,” she told the court of her feelings in the aftermath of the shooting.

In the late afternoon, Lanez’s defense team cross-examined the rapper. George Mgdesyan first focused on Megan’s omission of her sexual relationship with Lanez and claimed that days after the shooting, she told investigators “this wasn’t the first time” she had “backdoored” Harris.

“I’ve never been with anyone Kelsey’s been with,” she replied. During opening statements, Mgdesyan argued Stallion had also been romantically involved with fellow rapper DaBaby and NBA player Ben Simmons right after Harris dated both men. Via Instagram this week, Simmons denied this. Mgdesyan then prompted Megan as to why she initially was dishonest with police about the shooting. Earlier in the day, Megan admitted to lying to protect herself and her friends. “At the time, we are at the height of police brutality…I felt like if I said this man has just shot me, they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she said. “I didn’t feel safe in the car. I knew I just had got shot but I don’t feel safe with police either.”

“Snitching is frowned upon in the hip-hop community,” Megan answered Mgdesyan. Disturbingly, he responded by quoting a clip of her Instagram live in which she named Lanez as her alleged shooter publicly for the first time. “But I’m not finna let y’all keep playing in my face, and I’m not finna let this n—a keep playing in my face, either.” Mgdesyan, who is notably not Black, said the uncensored version of the N-word. Billboard reported that Megan appeared “visibly shocked” and asked that he repeat the line again. He once again used the N-word.

“People don’t even want to touch me,” Megan said of her industry peers at a particularly emotional exchange later in the redirect examination, before telling the court since the ordeal, she felt she’s been treated like a “sick bird.” She then recalled seeing the public’s response to the shooting on social media and noted several vicious posts implying she should be killed, becoming visibly upset.

Harris, and other witnesses—potentially, Kylie Jenner and Corey Gamble—are expected to continue through the week. Lanez has pleaded not guilty to all charges.