Megan Thee Stallion Lawsuits: Cooper, Garcia, and 1501 Cases

Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, has been at the center of several lawsuits in recent years. The most significant is her federal defamation and deepfake case against blogger Milagro Cooper, which a Miami jury decided in her favor in December 2025. She is also a defendant in a pending employment lawsuit brought by her former cameraman and in a 2026 breach-of-contract claim from a wardrobe stylist, and she previously settled a multi-year contract fight with her former label, 1501 Certified Entertainment. Here is where each of the Megan Thee Stallion lawsuits stands.

The Milagro Cooper Defamation and Deepfake Case

Pete sued Milagro Elizabeth Cooper, known online as Milagro Gramz, in October 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.¹ The suit accused Cooper of running a coordinated campaign to defame and harass Pete over the July 2020 shooting by rapper Tory Lanez, repeatedly claiming Pete lied under oath, and promoting an AI-generated pornographic deepfake video purporting to show her.²

The complaint brought claims for defamation, promotion of an altered sexual depiction under Florida Statute 836.13, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and cyberstalking. The cyberstalking claim was dismissed before trial.¹

The Alleged Paid Campaign

Central to Pete’s case was the allegation that Cooper was not an independent commentator but was paid and directed by Lanez and his father, Sonstar Peterson. Jurors saw records of six electronic payments totaling $3,000 from Sonstar Peterson to Cooper between October 2020 and March 2022, individual transfers ranging from $200 to $1,000.³ Cooper said the money represented birthday gifts and pay for podcast and book promotion. Pete’s lawyers called her a “mouthpiece and puppet” for the Lanez camp.⁴

The court sanctioned Cooper for destroying evidence after she deleted thousands of text messages and removed WhatsApp from her phone once she was on notice of the suit. The magistrate ordered jurors to assume the deleted messages were unfavorable to her.³

The Deepfake Claim

The claim under Florida Statute 836.13 focused on a June 2024 livestream in which Cooper, broadcasting to about 20,000 followers, was sent a link to an AI-generated pornographic video of Pete. Cooper debated its authenticity on air and tweeted that followers could find the link in her social media “likes” before deleting it during the same stream.²

The statute, effective in 2022, makes it a criminal and civil wrong to willfully and maliciously promote a digitally altered sexual depiction of an identifiable person without consent. A civil plaintiff can recover the greater of $10,000 or actual damages plus reasonable attorney fees.⁵

Trial, Verdict, and Damages

The trial ran from November 17 through November 26, 2025, in Miami.⁶ Pete testified that Cooper’s campaign was devastating, saying “there was a time that I genuinely didn’t care if I lived or died,” and that the deepfake cost her at least four music contracts worth roughly $1 million each. She said she completed a four-week therapy program that cost $240,000.⁷ Cooper testified that her work was “a new form of journalism,” maintained her belief that Pete was not shot, and told the jury she was “financially broke.” Her lawyers argued her statements were protected opinion and rhetorical hyperbole.

On December 1, 2025, a nine-person jury found Cooper liable on all three remaining claims and awarded $75,000 total:⁸

$50,000 in compensatory damages for promotion of the deepfake.
$15,000 compensatory and $1,000 punitive for defamation.
$8,000 compensatory and $1,000 punitive for emotional distress.

Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga initially cut the award to $59,000 because the jury had classified Cooper as a “media defendant” and Pete had not filed the pre-suit notice Florida law requires against such defendants.² On May 29, 2026, the judge reinstated the full $75,000, finding that Cooper had an “ongoing arrangement” with the Petersons and had been “commissioned” to publish the specific defamatory statements, disqualifying her from the notice protection for those statements.⁸ Cooper is also liable for Pete’s attorney fees on the deepfake claim under Florida’s fee-shifting rule, expected to exceed $1 million.⁹

Pete did not get everything she asked for. On April 20, 2026, Judge Altonaga denied her request for a permanent injunction barring Cooper from commenting about her, calling it an unconstitutional prior restraint that would “forbid statements not yet determined to be defamatory.” The court found no evidence Cooper had urged followers to threaten or harm Pete and held that the money judgment was an adequate remedy.¹⁰

As of June 2026, Cooper has appealed to the Eleventh Circuit and moved to stay enforcement of the judgment, saying she cannot pay or post a bond. Pete has opposed the stay, and the motion is pending.¹¹¹²

The Emilio Garcia Employment Lawsuit

In April 2024, Emilio Garcia, who worked as Pete’s personal cameraman and photographer from late 2019 until his firing in September 2023, sued Pete, Roc Nation, Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment Inc., and Hot Girl Touring LLC in Los Angeles County Superior Court.¹³

Garcia alleged that in June 2022, riding in an SUV in Ibiza, Spain, Pete had sex with another woman next to him while the vehicle was moving and told him the next day, “Don’t ever discuss what you saw.” He also alleged she repeatedly fat-shamed him, calling him a “fat bitch” and telling him “You don’t need to be eating” and “Spit your food out.”¹⁴ An amended complaint filed in January 2025 added an allegation that Pete threw a TV remote at his head at a hotel in August 2022 and cited lyrics from her October 2024 song “Best Friends” as referencing the Ibiza incident.¹⁵

Garcia also alleged he was misclassified as an independent contractor, denied overtime and meal breaks, and fired in retaliation after complaining. He is seeking six figures in unpaid wages, penalties, punitive damages, and legal fees.¹³

Pete’s team denied the allegations, calling the filing “riddled with scandalous, inappropriate, and irrelevant false allegations.” Her attorney Alex Spiro described it as “an employment claim for money” and noted no formal sexual harassment claim had been filed. Her lawyers also argued that citing song lyrics violated California’s anti-SLAPP law.¹⁶

The case was transferred to the Southern District of New York in October 2024 and assigned to Judge Gregory H. Woods, who ruled that Garcia had “plausibly pleaded” claims of a hostile work environment based on sexual orientation and retaliation.¹⁷ As of mid-2026, no trial date has been set.¹⁸

The Wardrobe Services Suit

In early 2026, celebrity stylist Eric Archibald and his firm Six K sued Pete in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging she owed $1,243,501.98 for wardrobe services between January 2024 and August 2025. They said they submitted invoices and had deal memos acknowledged by email but were never paid.¹⁹

Pete disputed the claim. She said her finance team’s audit “uncovered fraudulent invoices, unsupported charges, and styling shipments tied to addresses that could not be verified,” and added, “The facts are on our side and I won’t be coerced into paying charges that can’t be substantiated.”²⁰ The complaint states there is “no imminent direction towards settlement,” and the case remains pending.²¹

The 1501 Certified Entertainment Settlement

Before these cases, Pete spent years fighting 1501 Certified Entertainment, the label founded by former MLB player Carl Crawford that signed her in 2018. She called the contract “entirely unconscionable,” alleging it gave the label 60% of recording revenue and 30% of touring and merchandise income.²²

The dispute ran through multiple rounds of litigation in Harris County, Texas. In 2020, she sought a temporary restraining order after alleging the label tried to block the release of her album Suga. By 2022, she was arguing that her 2021 project Something for Thee Hotties counted as an album under her three-album deal, which the label disputed. 1501 countersued, claiming she owed more than $10 million, and she sought over $1 million in damages.²³

The parties reached a confidential settlement in October 2023 and “amicably” parted ways after more than three years of litigation. Financial terms were not disclosed. Pete left the label and has operated independently since.²⁴

1
Legal Affairs and Trials. Trial Begins Monday in Megan Thee Stallion Case
2
NBC Miami. Megan Thee Stallion Wins Partial Victory but Little Damages in Lawsuit Against Blogger
3
Legal Affairs and Trials. Sued Streamer Says She’d Bow Down
4
Billboard. Megan Thee Stallion Lawsuit Gag Order Derogatory Posts
5
The Florida Legislature. Section 836.13, Florida Statutes
6
CBS News Miami. Megan Thee Stallion Defamation Trial AI Deepfake Jury Deliberations
7
ABC News. Megan Thee Stallion Emotional Testimony Federal Defamation Trial
8
Rolling Stone. Megan Thee Stallion Tory Lanez Milagro Gramz Defamation
9
Law Commentary. Megan Thee Stallion Wins Defamation Case Against Blogger in Miami Federal Court
10
TMZ. Megan Thee Stallion Loses Injunction Against Milagro Cooper
11
TMZ. Megan Thee Stallion Court Rival Milagro Can’t Afford Bill
12
PACER Monitor. Pete v. Cooper
13
Los Angeles Times. Megan Thee Stallion Roc Nation Lawsuit Emilio Garcia Harassment Pay
14
NBC News. Megan Thee Stallion Accused Harassment Cameraman Said Was Forced Watch
15
Hot New Hip Hop. Megan Thee Stallion Ex Cameraman Lyrics
16
Legal Affairs and Trials. Megan Thee Stallion Litigation Roundup
17
Hot 97. Megan Thee Stallion Lawsuit Over Cameraman’s Claims Moves Ahead
18
CourtListener. Emilio Garcia v. Roc Nation LLC
19
People. Megan Thee Stallion Sued Over Unpaid Wardrobe Services
20
Yahoo Entertainment. Megan Thee Stallion Denies Wardrobe Claims
21
KISS 95.1. Megan Thee Stallion Sued Over Wardrobe Fees Calls Charges Fraudulent
22
Rolling Stone. Megan Thee Stallion 1501 Settle Lawsuit
23
Los Angeles Times. Megan Thee Stallion Settles Lawsuit Label 1501 Certified Entertainment
24
Billboard. Megan Thee Stallion 1501 Entertainment Legal Settlement