A judge has sentenced rapper Tory Lanez to 10 years in prison for shooting and wounding hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion.
The sentence concluded a three-year-long legal saga that saw two careers, and lives, thrown into turmoil.
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Los Angeles Superior Court judge David Herriford handed down the sentence to the 31-year-old Lanez, who was convicted last December of three felonies: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
From the initial incident in the Hollywood HIlls in July 2020 to the marathon two-day sentencing hearing, the case created a firestorm in the hip-hop community.
It stirred up a plethora of issues, from the reluctance of victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop and online toxicity to the ramifications of “misogynoir,” a term used to describe a type of misogyny experienced by Black women.
Herriford said it was “difficult to reconcile” the portrait Lanez’s friends and family painted during the hearing of a kind, charitable person and good father to a six-year-old son with the person who fired the gun at Megan, hitting her in the foot.
“Sometimes good people do bad things,” Herriford said.
“Actions have consequences, and there are no winners in this case.”
Megan Thee Stallion testified during the trial that Lanez fired the gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding, after leaving a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s home.
She had to have surgery to remove bullet fragments, and only revealed who had fired the gun months after the incident.
“Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace,” Megan said in a statement read in court by a prosecutor earlier this week.
“Slowly but surely, I’m healing and coming back, but I will never be the same.”