In his first on-camera interview while serving time in prison following his conviction in the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion, Canadian rapper Tory Lanez has maintained his innocence.
“I’ve never been violent towards a woman,” Lanez told NBC News, as seen in the video above. “I would never hit a woman, let alone shoot a woman.”
The rapper is currently incarcerated at California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County, which he was transferred to for safety reasons following a stabbing incident at the California Correctional Institution in May.
“There is definitely a very big misconception about me … that I’m this monster,” he said. “I feel like I was catapulted into this poster child for the unprotection of Black women, and it’s just so unlike me. And I’ve never really had a chance to express that. But you can look at my criminal record. I don’t have one, I never had one. And I feel like, you know, that connotation that I would do anything of this monstrous proportion is just completely incorrect, and it’s wrong.”
When asked by NBC News Entertainment correspondent Chloe Melas about his decision to not testify during his 2022 trial, he implied that he regrets the move.
“I think if I would have taken the stand, the verdict would have definitely been very different,” he said. His appeal of his felony convictions and ten-year prison sentence were denied last month, but his legal team has indicated they will file further appeals as soon as next week.
His appeal lawyer, Crystal Morgan, claimed to NBC News that they weren’t provided evidence during the 2022 trial, including medical records for Megan Thee Stallion, which they claim raised questions about the bullet fragments removed from her foot in 2020.
“Perhaps we could have questioned the doctors differently when they were on the stand,” said Morgan. “It does look suspicious.” The bullet fragments were addressed in the appeal denied in November, however.
“I believe not only that I was wrongfully convicted, but the amount of new evidence that has emerged since that trial, I think, has been overwhelming,” Lanez added.
He was asked how his experience has been behind bars, and said that he’s tried his best to “keep [his] head above water,” but he’s gone through a lot of trauma.
“I never imagined myself dealing with things that I would have to deal with,” he said. “I’ve been stabbed 17 times, almost lost my life.”
Asked if he has anything to say to Megan Thee Stallion, if provided the opportunity, he said he wouldn’t say anything “directly” to her.
“I would like that moment to happen in person,” he said. “We’ve both gone through a lot. There’s this connotation that, like, I share this hatred for her, but I don’t. I’m genuinely past that. I’m at a place of healing in my life. I’m at a place of taking accountability for the things that I did wrong. And when I talk about my case, I don’t want it to be taken as me coming at her. Because it’s not that. I’m just asking for somebody in the system to look at my case and look at the evidence and ask if this was fair.”
Last year, Megan Thee Stallion’s legal team called out the amount of misinformation being spread online about the case. Her attorney, Alex Spiro, said that there was “garbage” being spread online by “nonsense bloggers.”
Shortly after, she filed a lawsuit against blogger Milagro Gramz, real name Milagro Elizabeth Cooper, accusing her of spreading “falsehoods” about her on social media “on behalf” of Lanez. Her team later shared the evidence that was used to convict Lanez amid unfounded claims that an unearthed testimony proved his innocence.