Tory Lanez
Los Angeles prosecutors on Thursday charged rapper Tory Lanez with shooting artist Megan Thee Stallion during an argument earlier this year.
Lanez is accused of shooting at Megan Thee Stallion’s feet, hitting her, after she left a SUV during a fight in the Hollywood Hills on July 12, according to a release.
He faces two felony charges — assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. A message sent to his representative was not immediately returned.
Lanez, a 27-year-old Canadian rapper and singer whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, is due to be arraigned Tuesday in Los Angeles. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of roughly 23 years.
Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, is identified in the felony complaint only as Megan P.
She had declined to name Lanez as the person who shot her in social media posts and videos on the subject for more than a month. But on Aug. 20, she said in an Instagram video that “Yes ... Tory shot me,” and urged him to “stop lying” about the incident.
She’s discussed the shooting in several often emotional Instagram videos, calling it “super scary” and “the worst experience of my life.”
She declined to tell police that night that she had been shot, and initial reports were only that a woman had foot injuries consistent with broken glass. She has said that she was too frightened the situation would have escalated if she revealed to police that there had been gunfire.
Lanez has not spoken publicly about the incident. On Sept. 24, he said on his social media accounts that he would break his silence that evening, but that announcement turned out to be a teaser for the release of his fifth studio album, “Daystar.”
Lanez has not reached the stardom that Megan the Stallion has, but had a Billboard top 20 hit with “Luv” in 2016, and has had a successful run of mixtapes and major-label records since his career began in 2009.
At the time of the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion was already a major hiphop star following a triumphant year that saw her nominated for artist of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards.