Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was charged Thursday with assault with a firearm following an investigation into the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion on July 12.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said the 28-year-old Brampton, Ontario native, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was also charged with carrying a loaded and unregistered firearm.
Lanez is scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 13. He faces a maximum sentence of 22 years and eight months in prison.
“On July 12, the defendant and [Stallion] got into an argument while riding in an SUV in the Hollywood Hills,” read a release. “The victim exited the vehicle and Peterson is accused of shooting several times at her feet and wounding her.”
Last month, Lanez addressed the incident in a track titled “Money Over Fallouts.”
He raps: “Megan people trying to frame me for a shooting / But them boys ain’t clean enough / I see how they teaming up, watching and I’m calculating / Gotta keep it quiet, I can’t jeopardize the outcome waiting.”
Later, he raps: “I would never put you in no danger / and if I did you would have said it when you seen the cops.”
Lanez also casts doubt on Megan’s injury. “How the f**k you get shot in your foot / don’t hit no bones or tendons?”
Police in Los Angeles responding to a 911 call stopped the SUV that Stallion was in with Lanez and two others at around 4:30 a.m. on July 12. Lanez was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon.
Initial reports said Megan suffered cuts to her foot from broken glass but, a few days later, she took to social media to say she “suffered gun shot wounds, as a result of a crime that was committed against me." She did not name the alleged shooter.
Then, last month, Megan publicly pointed the finger at Lanez.
“Tory shot me,” she said during an Instagram Live. “You shot me and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs lying and s**t.”
Megan recalled she was in the SUV with a female friend, Lanez and his bodyguard. An argument broke out and Megan, who was in the front seat and only five minutes from home, decided to get out. She said Lanez, “from out the backseat of the car starts shooting me.”
Lanez was sued last month by a man alleging he was assaulted by the rapper and his entourage at a Miami Beach nightclub last November. "He swung, he initially missed, he jumped over and then they just started trying to attack me," Christopher Harty told NBC News. "They backed me into a corner, and once I was there, they started stomping on me, jumping on me."
The rapper was briefly detained by Miami Beach Police in 2018 during a brawl outside the same nightclub. He was released at the scene without charges.
In 2017, Lanez was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of marijuana and driving without a license after being pulled over by police in Miramar, Florida. The weapon charge was later dropped. A year earlier, he was cited for driving without a license, running a red light and failing to display his vehicle registration.