Photographer accuses Megan Thee Stallion of harassment and hostile work environment

A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was wrongfully fired shortly afterward and abused as her employee.

In the complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Emilio Garcia said that after a 2022 night out in Ibiza, Spain, he was in an SUV with the hip-hop star when she started having sex with another woman right next to him. He couldn’t get out of the moving car and would have found himself in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country even if he had been able to. Garcia was “embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout the entire ordeal,” the lawsuit said.

Alex Spiro, Megan’s attorney, said she would fight the lawsuit in court.

“This is an employment claim for money – with no sexual harassment claim made and salacious allegations made to embarrass her,” Spiro said.

The next day, Megan told Garcia never to talk about what he saw and berated and shamed him, the lawsuit said. The complaint also stated that Garcia, who had already considered quitting because he was overworked and underpaid in a hostile work environment exacerbated by Megan’s possessiveness and abuse, was misclassified as an independent contractor but treated as an exclusive employee.

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Garcia raised these issues in the conversation with Megan and was fired the next day after working for her for four years, the lawsuit said. He has since filed an employment discrimination complaint with the California Civil Rights Department.

The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, names as a defendant Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete; her companies Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment and Hot Girl Touring; and her label, Roc Nation. A statement of defense still needs to be filed. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from a Roc Nation representative.

Garcia is seeking monetary damages to be determined at trial, claiming he suffered severe emotional and physical suffering from his treatment at work, the firing and having to witness the scene in the SUV.

Megan, 29, was previously involved in a major legal drama – and endured a barrage of online abuse – as the victim of a shooting by rapper Tory Lanez, which the jury said was fired at her feet on a Hollywood Hills street in 2020. testified at the trial where jurors convicted Lanez of three felonies and a judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Megan was already a major emerging artist at the time of the recording and has since become one of hip-hop’s biggest stars. She won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2021, and she had No. 1 singles with “Savage,” with Beyoncé, and as a guest on Cardi B’s “WAP.”

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