Megan Thee Stallion Writes Op-Ed About Violence Against Women After Alleged Tory Lanez Shooting

Megan Thee Stallion has written a powerful op-ed for the New York Times about being a victim of violence.

“I was recently the victim of an act of violence by a man,” Megan, 25, wrote, referring to allegedly being shot by rapper Tory Lanez in July. “After a party, I was shot twice as I walked away from him. We were not in a relationship. Truthfully, I was shocked that I ended up in that place.”

The “Savage” rapper said the traumatic experience helped her realize why violence against women occurs.

“After a lot of self-reflection on that incident, I’ve realized that violence against women is not always connected to being in a relationship,” she said. “Instead, it happens because too many men treat all women as objects, which helps them to justify inflicting abuse against us when we choose to exercise our own free will.”

Since the shooting, Megan has vowed to speak up for women like herself and Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by police in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this year. The rapper slammed the state’s ruling on the case during her “Saturday Night Live” performance on Oct. 3.

“I recently used the stage at ‘Saturday Night Live’ to harshly rebuke Kentucky’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, for his appalling conduct in denying Breonna Taylor and her family justice,” she wrote in the op-ed. “I anticipated some backlash: Anyone who follows the lead of Congressman John Lewis, the late civil rights giant, and makes ‘good trouble, necessary trouble,’ runs the risk of being attacked by those comfortable with the status quo.”

However, Megan reaffirmed that she is “not afraid of criticism.”

“We live in a country where we have the freedom to criticize elected officials,” she added. “And it’s ridiculous that some people think the simple phrase ‘Protect Black women’ is controversial. We deserve to be protected as human beings. And we are entitled to our anger about a laundry list of mistreatment and neglect that we suffer.”

On Oct. 8, Lanez, 28, was charged with one felony count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and one count of carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle — nearly three months after the incident. He faces up to 22 years in prison.

Despite Megan blasting him on social media in August, she said she initially stayed quiet about the details of what took place “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 “Hot Girl Summer” rapper also spoke out about the upcoming election, stating that she hopes that Kamala Harris’ candidacy for Vice President will “usher in an era where Black women in 2020 are no longer ‘making history’ for achieving things that should have been accomplished decades ago.”

She concluded, “But that will take time, and Black women are not naïve. We know that after the last ballot is cast and the vote is tallied, we are likely to go back to fighting for ourselves. Because at least for now, that’s all we have.”

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