Tory Lanez
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Source: Greg Doherty / Getty / Tory Lanez
Tory Lanez spent Christmas in a cell after a jury of his peers found him guilty on all three charges, specifically, shooting Hip-Hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion. Now, his “fans” hope a petition will get him a new trial and keep him out of prison.
Spotted on TMZ, a petition sprouted up on Change.org immediately following the jury delivering the guilty verdict to the Canadian musician.
Tory Lanez’s family, friends, and fans are calling out the music industry, mainly JAY-Z, his company Roc Nation, and the jury, pushing a wild argument that Lanez is some sacrificial lamb for the “protect Black women” movement.
According to this crazy petition that has ridiculously garnered 19K signatures, Tory Lanez’s trial was a “circus of speculation, insufficient evidence, inconsistencies, and drunken memories [that] left us without much moral certainty of any truth.”
Word?
Peep Their Crazy Reasoning
These so-called “fans” of Lanez are zeroing in on the jury, labeling them irresponsible, and they rushed to their decision leading to Lanez being guilty on all three counts, which they feel was unjust.
“This case is also about branding, marketing, label heads and a music industry that pushes narratives based on who they have personally invested millions into. Could Jay-Z or RocNation be involved??,” that’s just one of the most wild claims it pushes.
The petition also takes the racial route stating, “Was this case taken because of a political pressure to fake protect Black women? African-Americans went along with hashtags that didn’t protect anyone & instead caused division between Black women and Black men.”
Lol, whatever.
These latest developments came after Lanez’s father, Sonstar Peterson (yes, that is his name), exited the court claiming Roc Nation and JAY-Z are somehow behind his son’s legal woes.
Good luck to Sonstar getting his boy Daystar out of this jam.
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Photo: Greg Doherty / Getty
Written By Alvin aqua Blanco , Director of Content Posted 1 min ago @aqua174 Alvin aqua Blanco is the Director of Content in the Men’s Division for iOne Digital, steering Cassius Life and Hip-Hop Wired. Representing the Bronx, he was nurtured by a steady diet of Hip-Hop culture and music. He graduated from the University […]
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Source: Penske Media / Getty / Pardison Fontaine
In a world full of Tory Lanez, ladies, get yourself a Pardi. The rapper/songwriter broke his silence to defend his boo, Megan Thee Stallion, and other Black women experiencing trauma.
Tory Lanez is the man on trial but based on terrible “reporting” from blogs and notable pundits like DJ Akademiks dropping unproven statements, Megan Thee Stallion is the one catching all the flack on social media.
The trial that has captivated social media and brought all of these so-called Tory Lanez fans out of nowhere has ushered in a wave of misogynoir.
Instead of focusing on Megan Thee Stallion being a victim of violence, as the facts have proven, the internet has scrutinized the 27-year-old Hip-Hop star for the number of men she allegedly slept with and being a young Black woman trying to enjoy her life and stardom.
You know, like her male counterparts always rap and boast about.
As the jury currently deliberates Tory Lanez’s fate, Pardi took to his Instagram account to prove that he is not embarrassed about the recent revelations regarding his lady and that he is an ally for her and other Black women.
“To any woman especially ones of color that has suffered an injustice I feel for you,” the “Hoop Earrings” crafter beings his message with.
He continues, “When you do find the courage to speak up it seems you will be ridiculed. Your credibility will be questioned. Your entire past will be held under a magnifying glass. In an instant you can go from victim to defendant in the eyes of the public.”
“To anyone with a daughter, sister, mother, niece or aunt, I pray for their protection. I pray for their covering. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
Word.
Tory Lanez Fate Hates In The Balance
Pardi’s beautiful message came after the defense and prosecution issued their closing statements on Thursday, Dec. 22. The jury began deliberations but did not reach a verdict.
The prosecution again painted the “short guy” who was “firing everywhere,” as one eyewitness testified, as a man with a “bruised ego” who shot Megan Thee Stallion.
The defense did its best to paint Meg’s former best friend, Kelsey Harris, as the shooter. We shall see who the jury believes as they continue to deliberate on Christmas Eve.
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Photo: Penske Media / Getty
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Source: Jason Davis / Getty / Candace Owens
The Tory Lanez criminal trial is underway and about to wrap up. As reporters feed information to those intrigued by the spectacle this court case has become, allowing them to form opinions, primarily false, Megan Thee Stallion, the apparent victim in all of this, has gained an unlikely supporter in Candace Owens.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
Edgeless coonservative Candace Owens, who in the past has criticized Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion for their raunchy hit record “WAP,” is putting on her cape for the Houston rapper.
Taking to Elon Musk’s Twitter, Owens blasted the obvious misogynoir Thee Stallion is receiving and shared a clip from her podcast calling it out.
In the caption for the tweet, she wrote, “Megan Thee Stallion has credibly accused Tory Lanez of shooting her in the foot. She turned down hush money and has been stabbed in the back by her friends. Instead of getting showered with support, Megan was mocked. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in her position.”
Twitter, Of Course, Can’t Believe What They Saw
It’s a safe bet to assume no one foresaw Candace Owens coming to the defense of Megan Thee Stallion.
The reactions to the tweet from other Twitter users are a clear indication of that. “I promise you, I PROMISE YOU, Candace Owens speaking truth to power in the year of our Lord 2022 was not on my bingo card,” one woman wrote on Twitter.
“Wasn’t expecting this but there are some valid points. Megan Thee Stallion deserves a lot more than the laughs, jeers, hate & suspicion she’s receiving as a domestic violence victim. The way she’s being treated by the culture, hip-hop/rap community and the media is vile,” another Twitter user wrote in response to the clip.
Owens is a notorious hater; honestly, if you closed her eyes and heard her taking, you would think she’s a white woman. With this surprising turn of events, her melanin is still present, and she recognizes a fellow Black woman’s pain.
The conservative talking head also claims this is not the first time she has put on a cape for Black artists.
“I actually defend a lot of black artists on my platform. The media just never covers it when I do,” she wrote in reply to a tweet.
“Notice that despite this going viral, there are no headlines about me defending Megan,” she added.
Well, Candace, here is your headline for saying something right.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: Jason Davis / Getty
1. Lol, true
2. Felt this
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Source: Jerod Harris / Getty / Tory Lanez
Tory Lanez and his defense team were thrown a huge curveball when a witness they hoped would help their case did the exact opposite.
Tuesday, Dec.20, the whirlwind Tory Lanez trial continued, and we are sure Tory Lanez and his team of lawyers thought it would be a good day for him, but it turned out to be the exact opposite.
A man said he saw an all-out roadside assault with Megan Thee Stallion being the victim, GASP. According to the man’s testimony, a fight broke out between two women, followed by an angry “short guy,” his words not ours, “firing everywhere.”
He also said he saw a woman fire the first shot.
Per Variety:
Court sessions opened on Tuesday with Sean Kelly’s testimony that he woke up to the sounds of two women violently fighting by a car where they “were pulling their hair and hitting each other,” he said, describing the interaction as “quite violent,” as reported Law and Crime’s Meghann Cuniff. It’s worth noting that when Kelly called 911, he didn’t report a shooting — he reported a group beating on a woman.
He told the defense that he did not see someone fire a gun, but said he “just saw flashes,” and again testified that they came from the shorter gentleman — a term he repeatedly used to describe Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson — who appeared to be “very angry….making lots of noise,” but again stated that he “never saw a gun,” a confusing bit of testimonial since as he continued to say that a woman had fired the first shot. “I believe I saw the girl shoot first,” he said, but he didn’t know she had a gun at the time, “I believed it was fireworks.”
The Witness Thought They Were Going To Throw The Stallion Into The River
Kelly also claims he did not hear Lanez say “dance b*tch,” which Megan Thee Stallion testified the Canadian Hip-Hop star said before he shot her.
The witness also notes that “everyone was fighting — even the driver” and that the “shorter guy was pushing and fighting both girls…then everyone started beating one girl,” and concluded with his assumption that “it appeared that they were going to throw her in the river.”
This latest development comes after Kelsey Harris, Meg’s former best friend, conveniently couldn’t recall what went down that night after initially stating she saw Lanez with a gun and shoot at the Houston rapper.
Megan Thee Stallion’s bodyguard, a key witness for the prosecution, is also presumed missing, but the LAPD has not yet opened a missing person case.
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Photo: Jerod Harris / Getty
EJ King Urged Meg To Leave Kylie Jenner’s On Night Of Shooting Megan Thee Stallion’s former stylist, E.J. King, took the stand Monday and testified about Megan and Kelsey Nicole’s behavior during Kylie Jenner‘s party, and spoke on Meg allegedly possessing weapons as well as him begging her to leave Jenner‘s house party. King, whose real […]
D.A. Is Looking For Meg The Stallion’s Missing Former Bodyguard After The Shade Room exclusively reported that Justin Edison, Megan Thee Stallion‘s former bodyguard, failed to make his court appearance to testify about the night she was shot, the Los Angeles County District Attorney is trying to locate him. Investigators Visited Ex-Bodyguard’s Home Monday, But […]
Juror Spotted In Elevator With Tory Lanez & His Team With the Megan Thee Stallion assault trial entering its second week, we have yet another twist, as a juror was reportedly spotted alongside Tory Lanez and his team in a courthouse elevator. Despite The Close Proximity, They Didn’t Discuss The Case According to Los Angeles Times […]
Megan Thee Stallion appeared in Los Angeles court Tuesday (Dec. 13) on the second day of the closely-watched trial over whether Tory Lanez shot her in the foot on July 12, 2020.
The rapper was met with a legion of her supporters at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, several of whom held a big, black “WE STAND WITH MEGAN” banner during a rally that was organized by non-profit The Gathering of Justice in conjunction with multiple women’s and violence prevention organizations. The Grammy winner arrived at the courthouse wearing a blunt shoulder bob and bold purple suit — a fitting color choice that symbolizes awareness of domestic violence, especially against women.
Once on the stand, Stallion’s voice cracked after L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta, one of the prosecutors on the case, asked her if she knew the defendant Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson). “Yes…. We used to hang out all the time,” said Stallion (real name Megan Pete), before admitting the two had an “intimate” but not exclusive relationship.
Lanez, wearing a cream patterned suit and white turtleneck, listened intently throughout Stallion’s testimony. He faces three felony charges: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, the latter of which was added to the list of charges ahead of the trial last week. If convicted on all three counts, Lanez faces 22 years in prison.
Ta went on to ask Stallion about her relationship with Kelsey Harris — whom the rapper identified as her “best friend since freshman year of college” who later became her assistant at the end of 2019 — before asking what transpired the night of July 11, 2020, when the two women, along with Stallion’s stylist EJ King, attended a pool party at Kylie Jenner‘s house. Stallion recalled the evening’s events in front of the packed gallery, where Desiree Perez, CEO of Stallion’s management company Roc Nation, sat next to activist Tamika Mallory. Lanez’s family was also present in the room.
“I just don’t feel good,” said Stallion, 27, when asked by prosecutors if she was “nervous” to testify. “I can’t believe I have to come up here and do this.”
During her time on the stand, the Traumazine MC shared her side of the story as prompted by prosecutors, recalling that she had texted Lanez to come to the “small” gathering at Jenner’s home, where the makeup mogul was joined by friends and her mother Kris Jenner’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble. By the time Lanez arrived at the residence, Stallion said she, Harris, Jenner and Lanez were the only people remaining, and the foursome hung out in the pool together. “My hair [wig] was starting to come off and I wanted to go,” said Stallion, noting that Lanez “had an attitude because he wasn’t ready to leave the party.” Ultimately, Stallion, Harris, Lanez and his security guard Jauquan Smith, who had driven him to Jenner’s house, left the party together.
Stallion said tension initially rose in the car when Lanez, 30, allegedly told her, “You need to stop lying to your friend” regarding their sexual relationship. Stallion, who said she knew Harris had a crush on the R&B singer, “didn’t want her to know I had dealt with him in any kind of way.” While she said Harris was angry after learning about the relationship, Lanez provoked the ire of both women when he called them “bi—es and h–s,” Stallion claimed. Growing frustrated, Stallion says she asked to be let out of the car on Sunset Boulevard but quickly realized she was “literally at the peak” of her career and only wearing a “thong [bikini]” in the middle of the “most famous” street in L.A. To presumably avoid drawing any unwanted attention, Stallion says she got back inside the car, only to ask to be let out again on a side street not too far from the first stop because she was “over it.”
“I started walking away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, bi—!’” she tearfully recounted in front of the jury, adding that she saw Lanez pointing a 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,” she said before explaining that she fell to the ground and crawled to a nearby driveway. “Everything feels blurry,” she continued, before recalling that Harris and Lanez bumped into each other on their way over to her. “Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t sh–, and I said, ‘Actually, you ain’t sh–. 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,” she claimed.
The magnitude of both rappers’ careers was a point of contention in the hearing. At one point, Ta asked if Stallion’s career at the time was “bigger” than Lanez’s and she answered “yes.” “I had just done a song with Beyoncé,” she told the jury excitedly, referring to the remix of “Savage,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its arrival in April 2020, just two months shy of the shooting. Lanez visibly furrowed his eyebrows when she added, “He was just Tory Lanez,” but that the highly publicized incident “has gained him a lot of popularity.”
Between sobs, Stallion argued that “every man that’s in a position of power that’s in the music industry” didn’t want to believe her side of the story. “I’m a villain and he’s the victim,” she claimed. According to Stallion, that’s one of the reasons why, immediately after the incident, she told police officers that she cut her foot stepping on broken glass. It was only four days after the shooting, during a phone interview with Detective Ryan Stogner, that she alleged she had suffered a gunshot wound, she said. “This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd,” she testified, adding that she feared everyone would wind up dead if she told officers Lanez had shot her. “I didn’t want to see anybody die. I didn’t want to die.”
Stallion also tearfully admitted to initially not being honest about her intimate relationship with Lanez because “it’s disgusting at this point. How could I share my body with somebody who could shoot me?” She added that her current partner, fellow rapper Pardison Fontaine, is “embarrassed” over the continual coverage of Stallion and her previous entanglements. “I can’t even be happy….I wish he had just shot and killed me,” she continued.
The courtroom noticeably stiffened once Lanez’s lead attorney, George Mgdesyan, began interviewing Stallion as part of the cross-examination. After bringing up Stallion’s CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King from April 2022, during which the rapper claimed she did not have an intimate relationship with Lanez, Stallion admitted to the jury that she had lied on national television about the nature of their relationship. The defense also presented her with the police report from her initial interview with Detective Stogner on July 16, 2020, in an effort to refresh her memory that she had told the police “this wasn’t the first time” she had “backdoored” Harris.
“I’ve never been with anyone Kelsey’s been with,” she told Mgdesyan, contradicting the attorney’s opening statement from Monday when he argued Stallion had also been romantically involved with fellow rapper DaBaby and NBA player Ben Simmons right after Harris had dated both men.
While attempting to build a timeline of the July 12, 2020, incident, Stallion and Mgdesyan engaged in a heated exchange about what she remembered, including what time she and her group arrived and left Jenner’s house, the geographical location of where the shooting occurred and Lanez’s whereabouts in relation to the SUV when he shot her. When the defense asked if she didn’t remember what Lanez was wearing that night because she was intoxicated, Stallion shot back by saying she didn’t remember because the incident was now two years old.
Stallion and Mgdesyan talked over each other when the defense showed different photos of the bloody luggage and Louis Vuitton bag from the back seat of the SUV, where Stallion and Harris were allegedly sitting right after the shooting took place. When Mgdesyan asked Stallion if the black Louis Vuitton bag was hers or if she owned one similar to it, she simply replied, “I have a lot of bags,” leading the jury and gallery to chuckle amongst themselves in a brief moment of levity.
The mood quickly tensed again when Mgdesyan again asked Stallion why she didn’t tell the officers at the hospital that she had been shot. “Snitching is frowned upon in the hip-hop community,” Stallion replied. That led the defense to swiftly quote a snippet of her Instagram Live video from Aug. 20, 2020, when the “WAP” rapper named Lanez as her alleged shooter publicly for the first time. The Houston-bred artist looked visibly shocked when Mgdesyan said aloud, “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 is not Black and recited the uncensored version of the N-word, leading Stallion to request that he repeat the full line. Upon doing so, Mgdesyan again used the uncensored version of the word.
Lanez straightened his suit jacket and seemed pressed when the majority of Stallion’s seven-minute IG Live was played from this YouTube video, in which Stallion is seen telling nearly 90,000 live viewers, “Yes, this n—a Tory shot me. You shot me! And you got your publicists and your people going to these blogs, lying and sh–. Stop lying! Why lie? I don’t understand. I tried to keep the situation off the internet, but you dragging it! You really f—ing dragging it!”
Stallion grew upset again during the redirect examination, wiping her nose and unable to hold back tears when describing how the alleged shooting has impacted her life and career in the two years since. “People don’t even want to touch me,” she wept, adding that her peers in the music industry viewed Stallion — a moniker suggesting a robust horse — like a “sick bird.” Her desolation grew more apparent while identifying various social media posts that she’s seen in the aftermath of the incident, including one that read, “Megan Needs To Be Shot and Killed.”
Coming forward with who allegedly shot her, Stallion testified, has ultimately caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself. Damn, maybe I should be dead,” she cried.
The trial will resume Wednesday (Dec. 14).