Tory Lanez sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion

Tory Lanez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday (8 August) following a drawn-out trial over the shooting of fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion.

Lanez (whose legal name is Daystar Peterson), 31, has been in jail since 23 December after a jury convicted him of first-degree assault, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and having a concealed and unregistered firearm in a vehicle.

Megan (real name Megan Pete), 28, testified during the trial that Lanez had fired a gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding in the summer of 2020. The pair had left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home.

During the court hearing in Los Angeles on Monday, Superior Court Judge David Herriford summarised more than 70 letters of support for Lanez, including one from Australian rapper Iggy Azalea.

Los Angeles prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that along with the crimes for which he was convicted, Lanez has re-traumatized Megan with social media posts about the case that emboldened many among his more than 2 million followers to attack her.

Judge Herriford denied a motion from Lanez’ defense attorneys for a new trial on 9 May.

Lanez’s lawyers had argued that a post from his Instagram account was improperly admitted into evidence. They said that Megan’s testimony that Lanez urged her not to go to police because he was on parole and would be in serious trouble was both untrue and an improper allowance of prior bad acts. And they said DNA evidence that prosecutors used to argue Lanez was the likely shooter fell well short of industry standards.

“I could be your son. I could be your brother,” Lanez pleaded with Herriford as he was led from the courtroom the day before the judge ruled that excluding the disputed evidence wouldn’t have made a difference.

His lawyers plan to appeal the conviction.

The day after Megan named him as the shooter, Lanez released his “Daystar” album with a track featuring lyrics that appeared to be aimed at Megan: “How the f--- you get shot in your foot / don’t hit no bones or tendons.”

Once arrested, he posted bail at $190,000 and was ordered to surrender all weapons and not contact Megan. He pleaded not guilty in November 2020 but violated the protective order after appearing with rapper DaBaby during a Rolling Loud Miami festival set in July 2021, moments after Megan got off stage. His bail was increased to $250,000.

In April 2022, he was briefly jailed for sending tweets that appeared to target her, increasing his bail to $350,000. And in October 2022, Lanez was placed on house arrest until the case went to trial after allegedly attacking another musician, August Alsina, at a concert, violating his bail.

Lanez began releasing mixtapes in 2009 and saw a steady rise in popularity, moving on to major-label albums. Megan Thee Stallion, now 28, was already a major rising star at the time of the shooting, and her prominence has surged since. She won a Grammy for best new artist in 2021, and has had No. 1 singles with “Savage,” featuring Beyoncé, and as a guest with Cardi B on “WAP.”

The allegations and subsequent charges against Lanez unleashed several waves of misinformation and online vitriol aimed at Megan, prompting conversations about misogynoir – a specific form of misogyny experienced by Black women.

In April, Megan – real name Megan Pete – spoke for the final time about being shot by Peterson and the public reaction to the shooting.

Explaining that she saw herself as a “survivor, because I have truly survived the unimaginable” rather than a “victim”, Megan said that she’d had to face her trauma being turned into a “running joke”.

“I understand the public intrigue, but for the sake of my mental health, I don’t plan to keep reliving the most traumatic experience of my life over and over again. I’m choosing to change the narrative because I’m more than just my trauma,” she said.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press