LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Rapper Megan Thee Stallion has given her first public interview about the 2020 Hollywood Hills incident in which fellow rapper Tory Lanez is accused of shooting at her feet, tearfully telling CBS' Gayle King that she feared for her life.
Lanez, a 29-year-old Canadian rapper whose real name is Daystar Peterson, has pleaded not guilty to one count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. The charges include allegations that he personally used a firearm and inflicted great bodily injury.
In an interview set to air Monday on "CBS Mornings," Megan Thee Stallion says the shooting stemmed from an argument when she was ready to leave a nightclub but the other two people with her in the car -- including Lanez -- were not.
"So, I get out of the car, and it's like, everything happens so fast. And all I hear is this man screaming. And he said, `Dance, bitch.' And he started shooting. And I'm just like, `Oh, my God.` Like, he shot a couple of times. And I... I was so scared," she told King.
"He is standing up over the window shooting. And I didn't even want to move. I didn't want to move too quick. Like, 'cause I'm like, `Oh, my God. If I take the wrong step, I don't know if he's going to shoot something that's, like, super important. I don't know if he could shoot me and kill me."
" ... I was really scared 'cause I had never been shot at before," she added.
Lanez has been ordered by the judge in the case not to make any public mention of his fellow rapper. He was handcuffed in court and spent about five hours in custody earlier this month after his bail was increased by $100,000 for his alleged violation of the terms of a pre-trial protective order.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Herriford agreed with the prosecutor's contention that some of Lanez's recent social media posts appeared to be messages directed at Megan Thee Stallion.
During a preliminary hearing last year, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ryan Stogner testified that he spoke with Megan Thee Stallion and that she told him that she heard Lanez say, "Dance, bitch," before he fired at her at about 4:30 a.m. July 12, 2020, as the bikini-clad woman got out of a Cadillac SUV for the second time that morning following an argument.
"No one heard, `Dance, bitch,' except for Megan?" defense attorney Shawn Holley asked on cross-examination.
"Correct," the detective responded.
Megan Thee Stallion described the injuries to her feet as "bleeding profusely" and said she fell to the ground and crawled to a nearby driveway, according to the detective. She said a female friend of hers who had been in the vehicle ran up to her afterward, along with Lanez, and that he "emphatically apologized for what he did" and offered to drive her home.
The vehicle was subsequently stopped by police officers responding to a call of a shooting, and she initially told officers and doctors that she had not been shot and that broken glass had caused the injuries to her feet, according to the detective.
Some of the bullet fragments were subsequently removed from the woman's feet by an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but some bullet fragments still remain inside her and she reported that she has ongoing physical therapy and difficulty walking in some types of shoes, according to the detective.
Following his arrest, Lanez made a jailhouse phone call to the victim's female friend as she waited at the hospital and "he continued to apologize for the incident that occurred" and explained that he was basically drunk, the investigating officer testified.
In an outburst from the opposite side of the courtroom during the Dec. 14 hearing, Lanez questioned aloud how the detective could tell why he was apologizing during the call.
"Does he say anything in the jail call about shooting?" Holley asked the detective.
"No," Stogner responded.
The injured woman, who was bleeding, and Lanez were in the SUV that was stopped about a mile from the scene of where shots were reported, according to LAPD Officer Sandra Cabral.
A handgun that was "warm to the touch" was discovered inside the vehicle, and four spent casings were subsequently found at the scene, Cabral testified.
In a video posted on Instagram Live following the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion said, "Tory shot me. You shot me and you got your publicist and your people ... lying ... Stop lying."
She said police officers drove her to a hospital, where she underwent surgery, and added that she was "incredibly grateful to be alive."
In an op-ed published in the New York Times, she wrote that she was "recently the victim of an act of violence by a man" and that she was initially silent about what had happened "out of fear for myself and my friends."
"Even as a victim, I have been met with skepticism and judgment," she wrote. "The way people have publicly questioned and debated whether I played a role in my own violent assault proves that my fears about discussing what happened were, unfortunately, warranted."
The rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete, gained fame in part through freestyling videos shared widely on Instagram. Her song "Savage" went viral on TikTok and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May 2020, while her provocative collaboration with Cardi B on "WAP" garnered her more attention.
In a posting last year on Twitter, Lanez wrote, "I have all faith in God to show that ... love to all my fans and people that have stayed true to me & know my heart ... a charge is not a conviction."
Lanez released his fifth album "Daystar," using multiple tracks to address the accusations. In one song he raps, "How the f--- you get shot in your foot ... don't hit no bones or tendons?"
The trial is expected to begin in September.
