Tory Lanez suffered another devastating legal blow on Wednesday when California’s appeals court rejected his bid to overturn his conviction for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in 2020.
The three-justice panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeal delivered a crushing 46-page ruling that demolished the defense’s claims of trial errors, cementing the Canadian rapper’s 10-year prison sentence.
The 33-year-old artist now faces mounting legal pressure, as he has been ordered to sit for his third deposition in Megan’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against blogger Milagro Gramz. However, court documents reveal he won’t have to answer questions about the actual shooting incident that landed him behind bars.
The appeals court justices delivered a scathing assessment of the Tory Lanez/ case, noting the testimony was “more than sufficient to support the jury’s finding that the rapper personally inflicted great bodily injury on” the Grammy-winning rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete.
The ruling effectively ends Tory Lanez’s hopes of escaping his December 2022 conviction on three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed unregistered firearm and negligent discharge of a firearm.
The shooting occurred during a heated July 12, 2020, argument following a gathering at Kylie Jenner‘s Hollywood Hills residence.
During the explosive trial, Megan testified that Tory Lanez shot her in both feet after telling her to “dance, b####,” and later offered her $1 million to stay quiet about the incident.
The Houston rapper initially hesitated to speak publicly, admitting she “didn’t want to be a snitch,” but felt compelled to “defend my name” when false narratives began circulating.
Tory Lanez’s legal troubles have only intensified since his incarceration.
During an April 2025 deposition related to Megan’s defamation case against Milagro Gramz, the imprisoned rapper turned the proceedings into chaos.
He repeatedly interrupted attorneys, accused them of planning to leak footage “to fake some sort of narrative,” and deflected basic questions by demanding definitions of simple words like “discuss” and “approve.”
When asked if he agreed that Megan Thee Stallion and Megan Pete were the same person, he responded evasively: “There’s a lot of Ms. Petes in this world. Which Ms. Pete are you talking about?” He even instructed his lawyer to “Google how many Megan Petes there are in the world.”
The disruptive behavior backfired spectacularly. A federal judge ordered Tory Lanez to pay Megan’s legal fees for the botched deposition and mandated that his upcoming third deposition be supervised by a magistrate judge.
Megan’s legal team described his conduct as “so disruptive, inflammatory, and inconsistent with the basic norms of civil litigation” that it “made a mockery of the proceedings.”
The defamation lawsuit centers on allegations that Milagro Gramz, whose real name is Milagro Cooper, acted as the rap star’s “paid surrogate” to spread “vicious and hateful rumors” about Megan. The case claims Cooper promoted deepfake pornographic videos of the rapper and falsely suggested she suffers from alcoholism and requires a guardian.
In January, a Los Angeles judge granted Megan a five-year restraining order against Tory Lanez, citing “conduct that culminated in [Lanez] shooting approximately five rounds at petitioner that resulted in injuries to her.”
The order requires him to stay at least 100 yards away from Megan until January 2030.
During emotional testimony for the restraining order, Megan revealed the ongoing toll of the harassment campaign: “I haven’t been at peace since I been shot, and I’m just trying to be un-harassed, not only by the person who shot me, but by the people he’s been paying to continue to harass me.”
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