Megan Thee Stallion took to the witness stand yesterday in her defamation legal battle with YouTuber Milagro Gramz - real name Milagro Cooper - telling the jury about the emotional distress she suffered as a result of content published by the online commentator.
The rapper, real name Megan Pete, went legal last year, accusing Cooper of being the “mouthpiece and puppet” of Tory Lanez, who is currently in jail after being convicted in relation to a violent incident that took place in 2020 during which he shot Pete in the foot. The YouTuber published a plethora of content criticising Pete, as well as promoting a pornographic deepfake depiction of the rapper.
According to ABC, in an emotionally charged testimony, Pete told the court yesterday that Cooper had “created a space for a lot of people to come speak negatively about me”, routinely sharing content that portrayed the rapper “as a liar and mentally unstable”.
“There was a time that I genuinely didn't care if I lived or died”, Pete said when asked about the impact of Cooper’s onslaught of negative content. “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”.
The court also heard from the rapper’s former manager Travis Farris, who described how a particular string of posts by Cooper - which included the deepfake pornographic video - caused significant emotional distress for Pete, who came to him in tears, even apologising that he had to witness the deepfake video.
That incident, he revealed, led to Pete attending a four week therapy session, treatment that cost the rapper around $240,000.
Pete accuses Cooper of defamation - in particular over claims she committed perjury during Lanez’s trial in relation to the shooting - as well as the intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of a Florida law that bans the distribution of “altered sexual depictions” of real people.
Cooper’s lawyers have pushed back against the defamation claims, arguing that some of what their client said was "substantially true”, while other statements were “clearly opinion and/or rhetorical hyperbole and therefore not actionable as a matter of law”.
The case continues.