is accusing<\/a> Milagro Cooper of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and promotion of an altered sexual depiction \u2014 an AI-generated deepfake that purported to show Pete in a pornographic video. It did not.<\/p>\nCooper was sent a link to the video while doing a livestream in June 2024 and, while debating its authenticity, tweeted to her then-20,000 followers they could find a link in her likes, according to testimony in the eight-day trial. After determining it was fake, her lawyer Jeremy McLymont told jurors, she deleted the link during the same livestream.<\/p>\n
Pete alleges Cooper was paid thousands of dollars to attack her by people connected to the rapper Tory Lanez, who opened fire in Pete\u2019s direction in 2020, resulting in a bullet fragment entering Pete\u2019s foot. She testified against Lanez, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n
The jury is considering whether Cooper maliciously and falsely attacked Pete as part of what Pete\u2019s attorneys called a witness intimidation effort before the Lanez criminal trial and, afterwards, by accusing her of lying under oath in that trial.<\/p>\n
Pete\u2019s attorney, John O\u2019Sullivan, argued the rap superstar was so distraught by Cooper\u2019s words and actions, she suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and required two five-week stays in therapy, costing $240,000 each.<\/p>\n
And, Pete alleged, the ordeal caused her deal pipeline to clog up, losing $4 million to $7 million in potential income, including a chance to appear in a Call of Duty project and a Super Bowl ad.<\/p>\n
In seeking a stalking injunction against Cooper in February 2025, Pete said she was so depressed she contemplated suicide, \u201cpushing me to the point where I didn\u2019t feel like making music anymore. I was in such a low place that I didn\u2019t even know what I wanted to rap about.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan suggested to the jury compensatory and punitive damages could reach at least $30 million, urging jurors to \u201cpunish the living daylights out of people who ruin it for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was referring to journalists and others who publish truthful statements in various media and the readers and viewers who expect them to be based in fact.<\/p>\n
One series of questions jurors have to answer revolve around whether Cooper was a legitimate media defendant.<\/p>\n
The questions included whether Cooper \u201cprovides disinterested and neutral commentary, rather than advocacy for a particular client or personal interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pete argued Cooper was doing Lanez\u2019s bidding in questioning whether Pete was truthful about the shooting.<\/p>\n
Cooper testified she was a reporter, albeit a \u201cnon-traditional\u201d one. \u201cI am a commentator,\u201d she testified. \u201cAll I did was facilitate the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
If she is found to be a media defendant, Cooper\u2019s defense argued, she could not be found liable and ordered to pay damages for defamation, because Pete\u2019s lawyers failed to file a required pre-suit notification to Cooper demanding a retraction.<\/p>\n
But, Cooper\u2019s attorney conceded, the counts and damages related to the emotional distress and altered sexual depiction video would stand nonetheless.<\/p>\n
If Pete does prevail, it\u2019s unclear whether or how much money she can recover from Cooper, who testified she is essentially broke, unable to pay her attorneys but trying to pay for rent and groceries.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nbcmiami.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ufeffA federal jury in Miami was sent home for the long Thanksgiving weekend Wednesday, unable so far to decide whether a Houston-based online commentator defamed rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion. They deliberated for about five hours before being discharged and told to return Monday morning. The Grammy-award-winning performer, whose legal name is Megan Pete, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2178232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[24003],"class_list":["post-2178231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-celebrity-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Jury-in-Megan-Thee-Stallion-defamation-case-unable-to-reach.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2178231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2178233,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178231\/revisions\/2178233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2178232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2178231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}