The rapper covers the December/January issue of 'GQ.'
Megan Thee Stallion felt pressured to be strong after a traumatizing incident. The 25-year-old rapper covers the December/January issue of GQ and opens up about the alleged altercation, during which she claims she was shot by Tory Lanez.
Tory has since been charged with, among other counts, a felony count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Megan was granted a protective order with stay away provisions against Tory last month. Tory has denied all allegations against him.
"I never put my hands on nobody. I barely even said anything to the man who shot me when I was walking away," she says of the alleged shooting. "We were literally like five minutes away from the house."
Megan claims that, when she tried to exit a car carrying Tory and two others, Tory shot at her feet. After the alleged incident, Megan says that Tory offered her money to keep quiet, a claim he denied to GQ.
"[At this point] I'm really scared, because this is like right in the middle of all the protesting. Police are just killing everybody for no reason," she says. "I'm thinking, 'I can't believe you even think I want to take some money. Like, you just shot me.'"
From an early age, Megan learned about "putting on a face" where she'd act "like everything was OK," a practice she still does "a lot" of the time. Despite being used to acting strong, the public pressure to do so after the alleged incident surprised the "WAP" rapper, especially as that pressure was accompanied by social media criticism of her.
"Like damn. I have to be tough through all this? All the time? It was like, who really checks on us or who protected us?" she says. "You just go your whole life with that mentality. And then when something actually happens to you, when you properly should have protected yourself, your first instinct was not to protect yourself, it was protecting other people."
"So it was like, 'What do I do? What do I say? Is anybody going to believe what I'm saying?'" she adds.
It wasn't just social media chatter that got to her, though. Megan also felt the need to be strong for her friends and family.
"It was weird. I saw something that said, 'Check on your strong friends.' And, like, a lot of people, they don't do that because they think, 'Oh, this person is just so strong, so I know they got their stuff together,'" she says. "... I feel like I have to be strong for everybody, and I don't want my friends or anybody around me to feel like it's a pressure on me, 'cause I feel like they all start freaking out."
Eventually she reached out to her friends, asking them, "Why didn't you call me?" After that, her friends have called. In fact, Megan jokes, "Now they're calling me every five minutes."
In addition to the support of her friends, Megan has also received words of advice and encouragement from the likes of Beyoncé and JAY-Z.
"She's so calm," Megan says of Beyoncé. "She would just be like, 'Megan, live your life.'"
"Then Jay-Z will call me and be like, 'Hey, listen, you know, you supposed to be turning up right now. You really need to be somewhere driving a boat. Live your life. Just f**k that,'" she adds.
With the encouragement from those in her life, Megan plans to continue to stand up for both herself and for other Black women.
"I want Black women to be louder. I want us to be sassier. I want us to demand more, be more outspoken, keep speaking and just keep demanding what you deserve," she says. "Don't change -- just get better. Grow from these situations. Don't be beating yourself up about these situations."
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