Rapper Tory Lanez has filed an appeal after being found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion.
In court documents obtained by Us Weekly on Wednesday, February 28, Lanez’s legal team cited “erroneous admission of evidence” and “prosecutorial misconduct” as grounds for the appeal.
The filing claimed that Megan, 29, was “allowed to inappropriately answer questions in a narrative format” during the December 2022 trial, “including testimony concerning irrelevant and inadmissible matters, such as her feelings regarding the circumstances of the incident.”
Lanez’s attorneys argued that “sympathy for the victim is out of place during an objective determination of guilt.” They claimed that during closing arguments, “prosecutors made multiple improper appeals to emotion and sympathy for the victim” which “had no bearing on [Lanez’s] guilt or innocence.”
A jury found Lanez guilty in December 2022 on three counts related to the July 2020 shooting: assault with a semiautomatic handgun, having a loaded and unregistered firearm in a vehicle and gross negligence in discharging his firearm. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August 2023.
Megan has opened up how the shooting affected her both mentally and physically.
“I was shot in both of my feet and I had to get surgery to get the s–t taken out, to get the bullets taken out,” the musician shared via Instagram Live in July 2020. “I had to get surgery. It was super scary. It was just the worst experience of my life and it’s not funny.”
Megan later penned an essay for Elle in August 2023, detailing the harassment she endured in the wake of the shooting from those who didn’t believe her story.
“I have truly survived the unimaginable. Not only did I survive being shot by someone I trusted and considered a close friend, but I overcame the public humiliation of having my name and reputation dragged through the mud by that individual for the entire world to see,” she wrote, adding that Lanez “laughed and joked about [her] trauma” and “peddled false narratives” about the shooting “for years.”
Nicki Minaj inserted herself into the drama when she seemingly questioned the validity of Megan’s account of the shooting in her diss track “Big Foot,” which she released last month.
“This bitch fell off, I said, ‘Get up on your good foot,’” Minaj rapped before asking, “F–k you get shot with no scar?”
The release came after Megan seemingly threw shade at Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, who is a registered sex offender, by rapping on her track “Hiss” that “Hoes don’t be mad at Megan / These hoes mad at Megan’s Law.”
Megan’s Law was enacted by the United States government in the ‘90s and requires law enforcement authorities to make information regarding registered sex offenders available to the public.
Drake has also come under fire for seemingly referencing the shooting in his music. In his November 2022 song “Circo Loco,” he rapped, “This bitch lie ‘bout getting shots but she still a stallion / She don’t even get the joke butt she still smiling.’”
Lil Yachty, who cowrote the tune, subsequently denied that the lyric was a dig at Megan.
“It’s not about Megan, it’s about women lying about their butt shots saying it’s real when it’s fake,” he said via Instagram Live in November 2022, adding that he knew Drake, 37, was “not going to address” the backlash himself.
Drake raised eyebrows again by sharing a photo of Lanez via his Instagram Story on Monday, February 26, with the caption “3 you.” Some social media users speculated that Drake’s caption meant, “Free you.”
“Men that bond over dislike of someone else always been weird to me. Especially when it’s dislike of a woman. Drake and Tory used to diss each other on songs. Now it’s ‘free my dawg,’” one X user wrote.
