Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was moved into a state prison in Kern County, California, on Tuesday night as part of his 10-year prison sentence for shooting Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
Officials moved Lanez from a Los Angeles jail to the North Kern State Prison in Delano, California, about 140 miles north of L.A., according to The Messenger, which first reported the news. The report says that Lanez will spend three to six months there before spending the remainder of his sentence at another facility.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office accused Lanez, whose given name is Daystar Peterson, of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in both of her feet after leaving a party in July 2020. After a two-week trial in December, a Los Angeles jury found Lanez guilty of all three charges against him: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faced a maximum sentence of 22 years and possible deportation to Canada.
The 31-year-old “Say It” rapper was denied a new trial in May, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August and was denied bail earlier this month.
Lanez attempted to leverage his celebrity status to lead a campaign of misogyny against Megan Thee Stallion, whose given name is Megan Pete. Men, mainly Black men, in the music industry attacked her credibility and used the conflict in their lyrics or jokes.
Megan addressed the harm it did to her while on the stand at the trial and again in an opinion piece for Elle.
“I wish he would have just shot and killed me if I would have known I would go through this torture,” Megan said in court last year. “I’ve been made to be the villain. He’s the villain.”
“As I reflect on the past three years, I view myself as a survivor, because I have truly survived the unimaginable,” she said. “Not only did I survive being shot by someone I trusted and considered a close friend, but I overcame the public humiliation of having my name and reputation dragged through the mud by that individual for the entire world to see.”
Lanez also released two statements after being sentenced — one in which he said he took “full responsibility for” the shooting and a subsequent one in which he claimed he was “wrongfully convicted.”
