[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A cameraman formerly employed byMegan Thee Stallion is suing the rapper for sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment — and some of his claims about what he was supposedly subject to while working for her are jaw-dropping.
On Tuesday, according toNBC News, a man namedEmilio Garcia filed a new lawsuit inLos Angeles County Superior Court. Represented by his attorney Ron Zambrano (yes, that is the same man working on behalf of clients in the Lizzo lawsuit), Garcia claims in the new filing that he was harassed, threatened, fat-shamed, and even forced to watch the rapper have sex with a woman while he was trapped in a car and unable to get away from the scene. Whoa!!
Related: Nicki Minaj Drags Kylie Jenner Into Megan Thee Stallion Feud With New Accusation!
Garcia began working as a cameraman for Megan — whose real name isMegan Pete — in 2018. Then, he quit his job a year later and went full-time on the road with theGrammy winner to film all of her various projects and shoots. That ended in June of 2023, though. And now, he is lambasting Megan and her management company,Roc Nation, for her alleged actions in his presence and treatment of him as an employee!
Most notably in the suit is a claim that Garcia traveled with Megan to Spain in June of 2022. There, at the end of a night out in Ibiza, he was in the backseat of a car with the recording artist and three other women. According to Garcia, the rapper suddenly began having sex with one of the women while sitting RIGHT next to him in the moving car. Speaking about it to NBC News, Garcia alleged:
“I felt uncomfortable. I was kind of frozen, and I was shocked. At kind of just be the overall audacity to do this right, right beside me.”
Then, the following day, theSweetest Pie rapper allegedly threatened him! Garcia claims that she gave him this ominous warning about the prior night’s car activities:
“Don’t ever discuss what you saw.”
That trip turned out to be a nightmare for other reasons, too. Garcia claims in the lawsuit that Megan began hurling fat-shaming insults at him in Spain. She allegedly called him a “fat bitch,” and later added:
“Spit your food out. … You don’t need to be eating.”
In the interview with NBC News, Garcia explained how those comments made him feel:
“To hear someone who advocates about loving your body tell me these things, I felt degraded.”
No kidding…
After retuning from Ibiza, theCognac Queen rapper allegedly began turning the screws on Garcia. In his lawsuit, he claims that she abruptly changed his compensation structure from a monthly flat payment to a pay-per-task system. He claims he was then treated differently while on the job and booked less and less often by the rapper and her management team. In turn, the suit states that Megan’s alleged “possessiveness” combined with “a lack of appropriate pay for the amount of time asked of him” turned his job into a nightmare.Garcia began to consider quitting the gig, but for the time, he remained on the schedule for future projects. Then, in June of 2023 — just a night before he was slated to work a job for her — Roc Nation notified him that his services “would no longer be required.”
Related: Wait, So Lizzo Is NOT Quitting Music Amid Her Ongoing Lawsuit Saga?!
That led Garcia to reflect on his time working for the rapper. And over the last ten months, that led down the path to this week’s lawsuit. In the suit, he claims that the harassment and fat shaming were “so severe or pervasive” that it fostered a “hostile, abusive work environment” which made working “intolerable.” His suit added:
“[Garcia] endured a barrage of relentless sexual and fat-shaming comments plunging him into profound emotional distress.”
Now, he’s suing for loss of earnings, the absence of other employment benefits he says are owed to him, the after-effects of untreated physical sickness, and the pain of mental anguish and emotional distress. To that end, he claims that being left without basic insurance coverage during his time working with Megan rendered him unable to get medical care when he needed it. In his interview with NBC News published just after the lawsuit was filed, Garcia said:
“What I learned throughout the years is that, especially coming from an office environment, is there’s no HR department in the entertainment business. So, if you don’t know that you’re being done wrong, you don’t really know how to advocate for yourself until you start asking maybe you start asking your peers who have representation, they have agents, they have management, they have attorneys. So I just really just want to encourage people to advocate for themselves.”
Zambrano also added his own statement in the interview:
“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. 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.”
In the end, the former cameraman is hoping to come away with “more than six figures,” as he told the news outlet. That includes unpaid wages, the interest on those wages, unpaid overtime wages, and the value of lost full-time employee benefits. His suit also seeks statutory penalties based on California’s labor laws, wage violations over him being formerly and improperly classified as an independent contractor, and attorney’s fees.
PerNBC News on Tuesday morning, neither Roc Nation nor Megan Thee Stallion have responded yet to this lawsuit or its claims. Oof. Thoughts, y’all? Share ’em in the comments (below)…
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/WENN]
