FILE - Megan Thee Stallion arrives at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, May 15, 2022, in Las Vegas. A photographer who worked for the hip-hop star said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday, April 23, 2024, that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) – A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
In the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Emilio Garcia said that after a night out in 2022 in Ibiza, Spain, he was in an SUV with the hip-hop star when she began having sex with another woman right next to him. He was unable to get out of the moving car, and would have been in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country even if he was able. Garcia was “embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout the whole ordeal,” according to the lawsuit.
Alex Spiro, Megan’s lawyer, said she would fight the lawsuit in court.
“This is an employment claim for money – with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her,” Spiro said.
The next day Megan told Garcia never to discuss what he saw and berated and fat-shamed him, the lawsuit said. The complaint also said Garcia, who had already considered quitting because he was overworked and underpaid in a hostile work environment aggravated by Megan’s possessiveness and abusiveness, was misclassified as an independent contractor but treated as an exclusive employee.
Garcia raised those issues in the conversation with Megan, and was fired the following day after four years of working for her, the suit said. He has since filed a job discrimination complaint with the California Civil Rights Department.
The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, names as defendants Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete; her companies Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment and Hot Girl Touring; and her label, Roc Nation. A defense response has yet to be filed. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from a representative of Roc Nation.
Garcia is seeking financial damages to be determined at trial, alleging he has suffered severely both emotionally and physically because of his treatment on the job, the firing and having to witness the scene in the SUV.
Megan, 29, was previously involved in major legal drama – and underwent a torrent of online abuse – as the victim of a shooting by rapper Tory Lanez, who a jury found fired at her feet on a street in the Hollywood Hills in 2020. She testified at the trial where jurors convicted Lanez of three felonies and a judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Already a major rising artist at the time of the shooting, Megan has since become one of hip-hop’s biggest stars. She won a Grammy for best new artist in 2021, and she had No. 1 singles with “Savage,” featuring Beyoncé, and as a guest on Cardi B’s “WAP.”
