LOS ANGELES (AP) — A photographer who worked for Megan you stud said in a complaint filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired shortly afterward and was mistreated as an employee.
In the complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Emilio Garcia said that after a 2022 party 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 ended up in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country even if he had been able to. Garcia was “embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout this ordeal,” according to the lawsuit.
Alex Spiro, Megan’s attorney, said she will fight the lawsuit in court.
“This is a request for employment for money – without any sexual harassment complaints filed and with salacious accusations to try to embarrass him,” Spiro said.
The next day, Megan told Garcia to never discuss what he saw and berated and shamed him, according to the lawsuit. The complaint also said Garcia, who had previously considered quitting because he was overworked and underpaid in a hostile work environment compounded by Megan’s possessiveness and abuse, was misclassified as an independent contractor but treated as an exclusive employee.
Garcia raised these issues during the conversation with Megan and was fired the next day after four years of working for her, according to the suit. He has since filed a workplace discrimination complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights.
The trial, first reported by NBC News, names as defendants Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete; his companies Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment and Hot Girl Touring; and its label, Rock Nation. The defense response has not yet been filed. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from a Roc Nation representative.
Garcia is seeking financial damages to be determined at trial, alleging he suffered severely emotionally and physically as a result of his treatment at work, being fired and witnessing the scene in the SUV.
Megan, 29, has already been embroiled in major legal drama – and suffered a torrent of online abuse — as a victim of a shooting by the rapper Tory Lanezwho a jury found shot at her feet on a street in the Hollywood Hills in 2020. She testified at the trial where jurors convicted Lanez of three crimes and a judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Already a major rising artist at the time of filming, Megan has since become one of hip-hop’s biggest stars. She won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2021 and earned a No. 1 single with “Savage,” featuring Beyonceand as a guest on Cardi B “WAP.”
