Canadian rapper, Tory Lanez has broken his silence after he was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of shooting his then-girlfriend Megan Thee Stallion in 2020.
In a post on Instagram, Lanez, 31, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, said that he maintains his innocence adding: ‘I refuse to apologize for something I didn’t do.’
‘I have never let a hard time intimidate me. I will never never let no jail time eliminate me. Regardless of how they try to spin my words, I have always maintained my innocence and I always will,’ Lanez also said.
‘This week in court I took responsibility for all verbal and intimate moments that I shared with the parties involved… that’s it,’ he continued.
‘In no way shape or form was I apologizing for the charges I’m being wrongfully convicted of. I remain on the stance that I refuse to apologize for something that I did not do,’ the Canadian rapper went on.
Lanez said that he has ‘faced adversity my whole life’ and prison time will be nothing but another moment where my back is against the wall and I refuse to stop fighting till I come out victorious… Tough times don’t last, tough people do,’ Lanez wrote online.
He also thanked his family and fans for their ‘continued support.’
On Wednesday, a judge sentenced Lanez to ten years in prison for shooting and wounding Megan Thee Stallion in the foot after a party at Kylie Jenner’s house in 2020.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Herriford handed down the sentence to Lanez who was convicted in 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 of 2020, to the marathon two-day sentencing hearing, the case created a firestorm in the hip-hop community, churning up issues including, the reluctance of black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxcity, protecting black women and the ramifications of misogynoir, a particular brand of misogyn black women experience.
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 6-year-old son with the person who fired the gun at Megan.
‘Sometimes good people do bad things,’ Herriford said. ‘Actions have consequences, and there are no winners in this case.
Megan 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. She revealed who had fired the gun only months later.
‘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 on Monday. ‘Slowly but surely, I’m healing and coming back, but I will never be the same.’
Lanez asked Herriford for mercy just before the judge delivered his sentence, requesting either probation or a minimal prison sentence.
‘If I could turn back the series of events that night and change them,’ I would, Lanez continued. ‘The victim was my friend. The victim is someone I still care for to this day.’
He added, ‘Everything I did wrong that night, I take full responsibility for.’
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