COURTS
“There is no truth to plaintiff’s claims,” Megan’s lawyers argue in new court filing
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 reimbursem*nts 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.Editor’s picks
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.
“This is just another attempt by another celebrity to shame the victim and shift blame from their own abhorrent behavior. In this case, Megan Thee Stallion never brought up any issues with Emilio accusing him of falsifying his invoices and overcharging that supposedly forced her to fire him until after he sued,” Garcia’s attorney Ron Zambrano, a partner and Employment Litigation Chair at West Coast Employment Lawyers in Los Angeles, said in a statement Wednesday. “Her attorneys are correct, our client is angry, but not by being so-called exiled ‘from the inner circles of stardom.’ He’s angry because of how he was treated. Megan Thee Stallion broke the law. Period. No one is lying here but her.”
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In a related filing this week, Pete’s lawyers also provided notice they were seeking to transfer the case to federal court. They described Garcia as a citizen of Texas, Pete as a citizen of Florida and Roc Nation as improperly named in the lawsuit. They further stated that Garcia’s contract named New York as the pre-selected forum for any disputes.
“Plaintiff alleged in his complaint both that he was a citizen of California and that Roc Nation, Ms. Pete’s management company, somehow employed him. Both of these allegations are demonstrably false,” the filing states.
