Megan Thee Stallion reportedly sobbed on the witness stand Thursday as she described how a deepfake pornographic video of her, created without her consent and allegedly promoted online by blogger Milagro Gramz, caused her mental health to plummet.
“I know it’s not me, but to be in front of everybody else, and they have to watch it — it’s really embarrassing,” she testified in a federal courtroom in Miami, according to NBC News. Megan claimed Gramz, whose legal name is Milagro Cooper, knowingly amplified the reach of the fake video online.
“To this day, I feel a little, like, defeated,” Megan told the jury. “Because no matter what, no matter if the video was fake or not … [Cooper] wanted it to be real.”
The Grammy-winning rapper addressed jurors on the fourth day of a civil trial for her defamation lawsuit against Cooper filed last year. Megan claims Cooper engaged in a “coordinated campaign” with musician Tory Lanez to harass and discredit her because Megan testified against Lanez at his criminal trial three years ago. During that trial in December 2022, Megan recounted for jurors how Lanez shot at her feet, wounding both, during a drunken rampage after a party at Kylie Jenner’s house in July 2020. Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
On the witness stand Thursday, Megan said Cooper’s alleged harassment of her, on various social media platforms, “created a space for a lot of people to come speak negatively about me,” according to ABC News. She said Cooper casting her as a liar and mentally unstable took a serious toll.
“I felt like nobody cared that I was shot,” Megan said. “I know everyone was making jokes about it.” She described feeling so despondent at one point, she questioned the value of her life.
“There was a time that I genuinely didn’t care if I lived or died,” she said, according to ABC News. “I felt like no way I mattered. No way I should even be living. I don’t want to be here. I’m tired of waking up. I just wanted to die. I was so tired of being alive.”
Megan, whose real name is Megan Pete, said her situation thankfully has improved. She was feeling “OK” on Thursday and said she hopes her testimony might help other women. “I’m not going to kill myself because I’m not going to give them what they’re looking for,” she reportedly testified.
Megan’s lawsuit did not allege that Cooper created the deepfake video. The initial complaint said it was unclear who the author was. Still, Cooper caused Megan severe emotional distress by “liking” the deepfake video on her @MobzWorld account on X, formerly Twitter, on June 8, 2024, and then urging her more than 100,000 followers across social media to check the “likes” section of her X account, where the video was viewable, the lawsuit said.
The next day, on June 9, 2024, Cooper allegedly shared a video with her 74,000 YouTube subscribers, addressing the X post telling followers to “go to my likes.” In the video, Cooper shared an image of Megan with a news chyron that read, “Is MTS A Professional Victim?”
Cooper was called to the stand earlier this week and reportedly told jurors she offered commentary about the 2020 shooting and 2022 trial without any outside influence from Peterson. She reportedly claimed she did speak with Peterson directly at least once, when she asked him to be a guest on her channel. She also admitted she received money from Peterson’s dad, Sonstar Peterson, but she said the payments were for “personal” matters, such as her kids’ birthdays, or “promotional” work, ABC News reported.
For his part, Peterson remains in custody in a California prison. Megan’s lawyers attempted to depose him three times, but he repeatedly refused to answer basic questions, including how he first met or came to know Cooper. Shortly before the trial started, he was held in contempt and fined $20,000 for “his obstruction of plaintiff’s multiple attempts to depose him,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid wrote in a ruling filed Sunday and obtained by Rolling Stone. Peterson previously was ordered to pay Megan’s legal fees after he was combative and feigned ignorance of basic facts during a videotaped deposition in April.
Peterson, 33, declined to testify in his own defense at his criminal trial, which ended with his conviction on all three felony counts. He appealed the verdict and sentence but recently lost that effort in California’s Second Appellate District.
Cooper’s alleged ties to Peterson were mentioned in Megan’s related petition for a restraining order against Peterson, first sought last December. At a hearing in January, Megan gave emotional testimony that touched on her claims about Cooper without naming her directly. “I haven’t been at peace since I been shot, and I’m just trying to be unharassed, not only by the person who shot me, but by the people he’s been paying to continue to harass me,” Pete testified under oath. “I probably won’t ever have my own peace about the situation, but I just really want the harassment from the person who shot me to stop.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard Bloom granted the request, giving Megan a five-year restraining order against Peterson. The judge cited “several uncontroverted facts” in his ruling, including “conduct that culminated in [Lanez] shooting approximately five rounds at petitioner that resulted in injuries to her.” The judge said Peterson must stay at least 100 yards away from Megan and refrain from harassing, intimidating, or threatening her in any way until at least Jan. 9, 2030.
