Megan Thee Stallion’s legal team is savaging the claims from her former personal cameraman that she mistreated and underpaid him.
In a new court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, Megan’s lawyers, Mari Henderson and Alex Spiro, say “there is no truth” to the “fabricated” and “outlandish” claims of sexual harassment and labor code violations made by the Grammy winner’s former cameraman Emilio Garcia in a lawsuit filed last month. Garcia, who worked for the hip-hop star between 2018 and 2023, alleged in his complaint that Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, failed to pay his overtime, made disparaging statements about him, and once engaged in sexual contact with a woman while traveling with Garcia in a moving vehicle.
“Plaintiff is a con artist who is manipulating the judicial system to act as his publicist and bullhorn in a desperate attempt to boost his failed singing career while trying to tear down the successful career of Megan thee Stallion,” Henderson and Spiro write in their formal answer to the complaint. “Throughout his tenure as an independently contracted photographer and videographer for Ms. Pete and her production companies…(Garcia) repeatedly falsified his invoices and overcharged Ms. Pete for services he never completed and sought reimbursements for money he never spent.”
Pete’s lawyers allege that Garcia’s “pattern of misrepresentations was so prevalent that Ms. Pete was forced to terminate (him) in June 2023.”
“Angry at the loss of this high-profile gig and his exile from the inner circles of stardom, (Garcia) filed a factually and legally frivolous complaint. (He) took a run of the mill wage and labor dispute and trumped up his frivolous claims with sensationalist false allegations of sex, debauchery, and workplace harassment for the sole purpose of creating a media firestorm to tarnish the career and reputation of Ms. Pete,” the lawyers say.
Garcia alleged in his lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that he was ultimately terminated in retaliation for his complaints about wage and hour issues. He claimed he was fired the night before a scheduled gig after he confided in Pete’s makeup artist that he felt mistreated and was considering leaving because Pete had started working with another cameraman.
In his most explicit claim, Garcia alleged he was traveling with Pete in Ibiza, Spain, in June 2022 when she “suddenly” engaged in sexual contact with another woman “right beside” him in a moving vehicle. “Plaintiff was embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout the whole ordeal,” his lawsuit stated.
“Megan just needs to pay our client what he’s due, own up to her behavior and quit this sort of sexual harassment and fat shaming conduct,” Garcia’s attorney Ron Zambrano, a partner and Employment Litigation Chair at West Coast Employment Lawyers in Los Angeles, said in a statement. “Emilio should never have been put in a position of having to be in the vehicle with her while she had sex with another woman. ‘Inappropriate’ is putting it lightly. Exposing this behavior to employees is definitely illegal.”
From Rolling Stone US
