Rapper Tory Lanez released a statement Wednesday claiming he was “wrongfully convicted” two days after being sentenced to 10 years for the shooting of rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
After a two-week trial in December, a Los Angeles jury found Lanez, whose given name is Daystar Peterson, guilty of each of the three charges he faced: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
At his sentencing on Tuesday, the Canadian rapper said that if he could “turn back the series of events that night and change them,” he would.
“The victim was my friend. The victim is someone I still care for to this day,” Lanez added. “Everything I did wrong that night, I take full responsibility for.”
On Thursday, though, he clarified his sentencing remarks: “This week in court I took responsibility for all verbal and intimate moments that I shared with the parties involved.... That’s it.”
“In no way shape or form was I apologizing for the charges I’m being wrongfully convicted of. I remain on the stance that I refuse to apologize for something that I did not do,” he added.
The 31-year-old musician was found guilty of shooting Megan (birth name Megan Pete) in both of her feet in the Hollywood Hills area after leaving a party thrown by TV personality Kylie Jenner in July 2020.
Despite Lanez’s claims of innocence, there were multiple damning moments during the trial that likely led to his conviction.
Prosecutors presented multiple pieces of evidence of Lanez apologizing after being arrested by police the night of the shooting. Moreover, the defense’s own witness testified that Lanez was “firing everywhere.”
Kelsey Harris, Megan’s former friend and assistant, said on multiple occasions that Lanez shot Megan. (Though she refused to cooperate on the stand beyond repeatedly claiming her constitutional right against self-incrimination.)
Megan has accused Lanez of spreading misinformation and launching a hate campaign against her.
During the trial and in the years leading up to it, Lanez’s supporters, his attorney, bloggers and prominent hip-hop figures leaned into using misogynoir, a specific brand of misogyny targeting Black women, against Megan.
“I’m telling on one of y’all’s friends and now everybody is gonna hate me,” Megan told the court. “Every man in a position of power in the music industry has been giving me hell for going on the last three years.”
“I wish he would have just shot and killed me if I would have known I would go through this torture,” Megan added. “I’ve been made to be the villain. He’s the villain.”