The world knows her as Megan Thee Stallion, but behind the glamorous superstar that blessed her Hotties with hits like “Plan B,” “W.A.P.,” and “Savage” is a real woman who almost lost it all in July 2020, after Tory Lanez allegedly shot at her feet following an argument. While the incident has been debated and debased by fans online, only a handful of people know what happened. “What nobody knows is, I had to get the surgery the same night [as the alleged shooting],” Megan, 27, told Rolling Stone’s Mankaprr Conteh for the publication’s new cover story. Megan revealed that after the incident and surgery, she “stayed in the hospital in California for maybe four days.”
“Then I was in New York for a while. Both of my legs wrapped up. I could not walk,” said Megan. “I still have bullet fragments in my feet right now. I was very scared that I was not able to be Megan Thee Stallion no more. And I was f-cked up.”
The trauma from the incident and the public scrutiny that followed has left Megan with nightmares and a scar of betrayal. “I thought we had a real connection,” she says of Lanez, adding that she bonded with Tory over the mutual loss of her mothers (he lost his mom to anemia complications when he was 11). “I thought he knew me. And I never would’ve thought he would’ve shot at me at all,” she said. “I never put my hands on this man. I never did anything to him. There was an argument. People argue every day. Friends argue every day.”
“I feel shame, a little bit, because even after he shot me, I still was thinking about everybody else in the car,” she says. “I thought everybody in the car was my friend, [and] the whole time, that’s not how they thought of me. That’s what really hurts.”
Tory was charged with assault in October 2022. He has denied shooting Megan. He also released the universally-condemned DAYSTAR album on the back of the incident, claiming he was being framed while alluding to a soured romance. “That man was never my ex. You were never my man,” said Megan. Tory found himself in some legal hot water in April when he was handcuffed during a court hearing after a judge ruled he violated a protective order by talking about Megan on social media.
Prosecutors also voiced concern about a tweet from DJ Akademiks, who claimed that Tory’s DNA was not found on the gun recovered at the scene. Lanez’s attorney, per Rolling Stone, argued that a DNA swab of the weapon was “inconclusive” and that “there were for contributors.” However, Akademiks also claimed he’d seen unreleased evidence that cleared Lanez of the shooting, and if so, Lanez would have been in violation of another court order. Tory’s attorney argued that he did not provide the DJ with any such evidence.