Jurors handed Megan Thee Stallion a victory Monday in her lawsuit against Milagro Gramz, the blogger she accused of promoting a deepfake pornographic video of her and coordinating with Tory Lanez to spread \u201cfalse and disproven theories.\u201d<\/p>\n
After two days of deliberations, jurors in Miami federal court found Gramz liable for defaming Megan, intentionally inflicting emotional distress by coordinating with Lanez to discredit the \u201cLover Girl\u201d rapper, and boosting the reach of the sexually explicit deepfake video. The jury awarded the Grammy-winning rapper, born Megan Pete, $75,000 in damages. Under Florida law, Cooper\u2019s liability for the video\u2019s promotion also puts her on the hook for Megan\u2019s legal fees, which are expected to top $1 million, according to a source.<\/p>\n
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In a significant twist expected to change the final judgment, the jurors also found that Cooper \u201cshould be treated as a media defendant.\u201d They made the determination despite concluding on their verdict form that Cooper provided \u201cadvocacy for a particular client or personal interest.\u201d If the judge upholds Cooper as a media defendant in her final order, the defamation count will be dismissed. That\u2019s because media outlets are entitled to advance notice before a lawsuit is filed, and Cooper did not receive such notice.<\/p>\n
In their verdict, the jurors awarded compensatory damages of $15,000 for defamation, $8,000 for emotional distress, and $50,000 for promotion of the altered video. They added $1,000 in punitive damages for the defamation count and another $1,000 in punitive damages for the emotional distress count.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are thankful for the jury\u2019s commitment to reinforcing the importance of truth, accountability and responsible commentary on social media,\u201d Megan\u2019s lawyer, Mari Henderon, said in a statement. \u201cNot only is Milagro being held accountable for paying Megan compensatory and punitive damages, but Florida\u2019s fee-shifting legal provision will require her to cover costs of Megan\u2019s legal bills on the deepfake claim. This verdict sends a clear message that spreading dangerous misinformation carries significant consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the courthouse, Cooper expressed her disappointment. \u201cI\u2019m not ecstatic. Of course, you want things to go your way. But, like I said, I respect the jury and what they decided,\u201d Cooper told reporters, according to Legal Affairs & Trials<\/a>. In a follow-up statement, one of Cooper\u2019s lawyers praised her willingness to \u201cstand up for her voice\u201d as an independent creator.<\/p>\n \u201cThe jury awarded a nominal amount of damages compared to the millions of dollars Ms. Pete demanded from Ms. Cooper throughout the course of this litigation,\u201d lawyer Jeremy McLymont said. \u201cEvidently, the jury did not believe that Ms. Cooper was the sole cause of Ms. Pete\u2019s emotional distress, and that is reflected in their verdict. The jury\u2019s verdict also reminds us that you cannot sue media defendants without providing the proper due process.\u201d<\/p>\n Megan sued Gramz, whose legal name is Milagro Cooper, in October 2024<\/a>. She accused Cooper of being a \u201clongtime mouthpiece\u201d for Lanez, the musician convicted of opening fire<\/a> with a semiautomatic weapon and wounding Megan in both feet in July 2020. According to the lawsuit, Cooper \u201cconspired\u201d with Lanez to claim Megan perjured herself at Lanez\u2019s criminal trial and is a mentally incompetent alcoholic. Megan alleged Cooper also promoted the deepfake video, which artificially depicted Megan engaged in sexual acts, to her more than 100,000 followers on social media.<\/p>\n In her lawsuit and over several days on the witness stand in Miami, Megan claimed Cooper and Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, maliciously spread rumors about her as retribution for her testimony against Peterson<\/a>. Megan said the online vitriol pushed her to the brink. She did not allege that Cooper created the deepfake video, but jurors saw evidence that Cooper \u201cliked\u201d the video on her @MobzWorld account on X, on June 8, 2024, and then urged her followers to \u201cgo to my likes,\u201d where it was viewable.<\/p>\n \u201cI know it\u2019s not me, but to be in front of everybody else, and they have to watch it \u2014 it\u2019s really embarrassing,\u201d Megan testified on Nov. 20, according to NBC News<\/a>. Megan claimed Cooper knowingly amplified the reach of the fake video online, causing her severe emotional distress.<\/p>\n \u201cTo this day, I feel a little, like, defeated,\u201d Megan told the jury. \u201cBecause no matter if the video was fake or not \u2026 [Cooper] wanted it to be real.\u201d She said Cooper\u2019s alleged harassment \u201ccreated a space for a lot of people to come speak negatively about me,\u201d according to ABC News<\/a>. She said Cooper calling her a liar, \u201ca professional victim,\u201d and mentally unstable took a serious toll. (Megan\u2019s close friend, Travis Farris, reportedly testified that after the video spread online, the rapper\u2019s mental health plummeted, and she sought help for depression at a therapy center that cost $240,000 a month.)<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like nobody cared that I was shot,\u201d Megan testified. \u201cI know everyone was making jokes about it.\u201d She described feeling so despondent at one point, she questioned the value of her life.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a time that I genuinely didn\u2019t care if I lived or died,\u201d she said, according to ABC News. \u201cI felt like no way I mattered. No way I should even be living. I don\u2019t want to be here. I\u2019m tired of waking up. I just wanted to die. I was so tired of being alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Megan said she\u2019s convinced Peterson\u2019s camp prompted Cooper to call her an alcoholic with a family of alcoholics. \u201cAgain, I don\u2019t know Milagro, and Milagro doesn\u2019t know me, and a lot of my family is deceased. \u2026 So why do you sound so sure talking about my family?\u201d Megan testified, according to Legal Affairs and Trials.<\/a><\/p>\n Cooper was called to the witness stand last week and reportedly told jurors she offered commentary about the 2020 shooting and 2022 trial without any outside influence from Peterson. She reportedly claimed she did speak with Peterson directly at least once, when she asked him to be a guest on her channel. She admitted she received money from Peterson\u2019s dad, Sonstar Peterson, but she said the payments were for \u201cpersonal\u201d matters, such as her kids\u2019 birthdays, or \u201cpromotional\u201d work, ABC News reported. Cooper, who lives in Megan\u2019s hometown of Houston, claimed her commentary about Peterson\u2019s trial was protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n Peterson, 33, is currently serving his 10-year prison sentence in California. Megan\u2019s lawyers attempted to depose him three times for the civil case, but he repeatedly refused to answer basic questions, including how he first met or came to know Cooper. Shortly before the Miami trial started, he was held in contempt and fined $20,000<\/a> for \u201chis obstruction of plaintiff\u2019s multiple attempts to depose him,\u201d U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid wrote in a ruling filed Nov. 16 and obtained by Rolling Stone. Peterson previously was ordered to pay Megan\u2019s legal fees after he was combative and feigned ignorance of basic facts during a videotaped deposition<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n Peterson declined to testify in his own defense at his criminal trial, which ended with his conviction on all three felony counts<\/a>. He appealed the conviction, but California\u2019s Second Appellate District recently rejected the effort to overturn the jury\u2019s verdict and the judge\u2019s sentence.<\/p>\n Cooper\u2019s alleged ties to Peterson were mentioned in Megan\u2019s related petition for a restraining order against Peterson<\/a> sought last December. At a hearing in January, Megan gave similarly emotional testimony. \u201cI haven\u2019t been at peace since I been shot, and I\u2019m just trying to be unharassed, not only by the person who shot me, but by the people he\u2019s been paying to continue to harass me,\u201d Megan testified under oath. \u201cI probably won\u2019t ever have my own peace about the situation, but I just really want the harassment from the person who shot me to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard Bloom granted the request, giving Megan a five-year restraining order against Peterson<\/a>. The judge cited \u201cseveral uncontroverted facts\u201d in his ruling, including \u201cconduct that culminated in [Lanez] shooting approximately five rounds at petitioner that resulted in injuries to her.\u201d The judge said Peterson must stay at least 100 yards away from Megan and refrain from harassing, intimidating, or threatening her in any way until at least Jan. 9, 2030.<\/p>\n During Peterson\u2019s criminal trial, jurors heard testimony that Peterson pointed a handgun at Megan\u2019s feet and fired while saying, \u201cDance, bitch.\u201d The chief resident of orthopedic surgery at Cedars Sinai Medical Center walked jurors through X-rays of Megan\u2019s feet and said doctors\u00a0identified four metallic bullet fragments<\/a>\u00a0embedded in her flesh and removed what they could.<\/p>\n Jurors also saw evidence that Megan\u2019s former best friend Kelsey Harris, who was a witness to the shooting, texted Megan\u2019s bodyguard five minutes after the incident in an emergency call for assistance. \u201cHelp \/ Tory shot meg \/ 911,\u201d the three-line text shown to jurors said. Beyond that, the judge also allowed prosecutors to play a recorded jail call that Peterson made to Harris shortly after the shooting. He blamed alcohol and said Megan was \u201cprobably never ever gonna ever talk to me ever again.\u201d In a subsequent text to Megan, he wrote, \u201cI know u prolly never gone to talk to me again. But I genuinely want u to know I\u2019m sorry from the bottom of my heart. And I was just too drunk. None the less shit should have never happened and I can\u2019t change what did. I just feel horrible. Cuz I genuinely just got too drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n A man who lived on the residential street where the shooting occurred, Sean Kelly, became prosecutors\u2019 star witness when he testified that he woke up to the sound of an argument on the street outside his Los Angeles residence. He recalled looking out a window and seeing two women arguing and physically fighting next to a car.<\/p>\n Kelly never saw a gun, he testified, but he believed one of the women fired at least one shot because he saw a muzzle flash that seemed to come from her direction. Kelly told jurors\u00a0he later saw a \u201cvery agitated\u201d short man \u201cfiring everywhere.\u201d<\/a> At the time the shots were fired, the man had an object in his hand with his arms outstretched, Kelly testified.<\/p>\n In her testimony last week, Megan said she believes Kelly initially mistook Peterson for a woman. She reportedly told jurors she\u2019s nearly six feet tall, while Harris is less than five feet. \u201cTory Lanez is about 5\u20192\u2033, 5\u20193\u2033, and was very petite at the time, which is why people probably thought that two women were fighting,\u201d she testified, according to Legal Affairs and Trials<\/a>. \u201cIf he know he saw two women fighting, that would be one thing. He thought he saw two women fighting,\u201d Megan said.<\/p>\n As Rolling Stone reported during the criminal trial, Harris also texted Megan hours after the shooting, claiming Peterson had attacked her. \u201cShould I get a scan at urgent care? My chest is hurting. \u2026 My left side, back and neck hurt, but that\u2019s from the fighting and him dragging me out of the car by my hair,\u201d the text shown in court said.<\/p>\n Last week at the Miami civil trial, Cooper\u2019s former livestream moderator, Amiel Holland-Briggs, reportedly testified that he advised Cooper against branding Megan a liar. He purportedly said Cooper\u2019s approach to the trial went off the rails after she spoke with Peterson and his dad. He said the narrative she started spinning went \u201cin a direction that I did not like,\u201d and it felt like Gramz was building a \u201ccult-like\u201d following. \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if somebody turns their brain off and they decide to not do their own logical thinking,\u201d he said, according to Legal Affairs and Trials.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jurors handed Megan Thee Stallion a victory Monday in her lawsuit against Milagro Gramz, the blogger she accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,59407,75,82902,32702,141986,141987,73953,10053,141985,16461],"class_list":["post-319652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-emotional-distress","tag-entertainment","tag-megan","tag-megan-thee-stallion","tag-milagro-cooper","tag-pornographic-video","tag-punitive-damages","tag-rolling-stone","tag-sonstar-peterson","tag-tory-lanez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}