A former cameraman for Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion is accusing her of harassment, creating a hostile work environment and violating labor codes, according to a new lawsuit first reported by NBC News on Tuesday.
In a 42-page complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the cameraman, Emilio Garcia, claimed that Megan had sex with a woman in front of him and two other women in a moving vehicle while on tour in Ibiza, Spain, in June 2022. HuffPost has obtained and viewed the lawsuit.
“Plaintiff could not get out of the car as it was both moving and he was in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country. Plaintiff was embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout the whole ordeal,” according to the suit.
The following day, Megan demeaned Garcia and told him, “Don’t ever discuss what you saw.”
“Stallion berated and directed her fat-shaming comments towards plaintiff such as ‘Fat Bitch,’ ‘Spit your food out,’ and ‘You don’t need to be eating,’” the lawsuit says.
Garcia began working for Roc Nation, which manages Megan, as the rapper’s personal cameraman in 2018. In 2019, he quit his other job and switched to full-time employment, working for Megan for more than 50 hours a week. He was classified as an independent contractor, which the lawsuit claims excluded him from the protections detailed in California law and prevented him from receiving overtime pay and health care.
Garcia, who said he was also prohibited from seeking outside work, claimed that he was not given meals or rest periods while working as Megan’s cameraman, according to the suit.
Initially, his pay was a flat monthly rate of $4,000. However, in August 2022, a couple of months after the incident in Ibiza, Roc Nation revised Garcia’s pay structure to a pay-per-task system, effectively lowering his income despite providing the same amount of work.
“Such harassment was so severe or pervasive that it altered the terms and conditions of Plaintiff’s employment, creating a hostile, abusive work environment and making his working conditions intolerable,” the lawsuit states.
Roc Nation let go of Garcia on or around June last year, a move he believes was retaliatory because he complained about the work environment.
The suit claims that Garcia “grapples with mounting anxiety, depression, and physical distress stemming from the toxic work environment, compounded by the trauma of unpaid work.”
In addition to Megan, whose government name is Megan Pete, the suit lists Roc Nation LLC, Hot Girl Touring LLC and Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment, Inc. as defendants. Garcia requested a jury trial and is seeking monetary relief.
“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, said in an email to HuffPost.
“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,” he added.
Megan’s attorney, Alex Spiro, dismissed the suit as “an employment claim for money — with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her.”
The Grammy-winning artist previously found herself in the center of pop culture discourse and the court of public opinion after a shooting involving Tory Lanez.
Megan was shot by the Canadian artist on July 12, 2020. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office brought three felony charges against him for the shooting in October later that year.
In the years to come, Megan was the target of misogynoir, a term that details an offshoot of misogyny aimed specifically at Black women, from her critics and Lanez’s fans, with many of them skeptical of Megan’s claim that the artist shot her.
Lanez was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in August 2023 after being found guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
Currently, Megan is preparing for a world tour that begins next month.
