A former cameraman for Megan Thee Stallion has accused her of harassment and fostering a hostile work environment in a lawsuit filed with the Los Angeles Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Emilio Garcia, who worked as a personal cameraman for the rapper from 2019 to 2023, alleges that he was stuck in a moving car with Megan Thee Stallion while she had sex with a woman. According to the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by TIME, Garcia traveled to Ibiza, Spain with Megan Thee Stallion in June 2022 and was in a car with her and another woman when they began having sex. Garcia says he was unable to leave because the car was moving.
Speaking with NBC News, Garcia says he felt “uncomfortable” and “shocked” at “the overall audacity to do this right, right beside me.” Megan Thee Stallion asked him if he was in SUV and he confirmed that he was, the lawsuit says. She told him not to speak about what he saw and Garcia also said in the lawsuit that she hurled fatphobic comments at him, calling him a “fat b-tch” and telling him to “spit your food out,” saying, “You don’t need to be eating.” “To hear someone who advocates about loving your body tell me these things, I felt degraded,” Garcia says.
“This is an employment claim for money—with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her,” Alex Spiro, an attorney for Megan Thee Stallion, said in an email to TIME. “We will deal with this in court.” Representatives for Megan Thee Stallion and Roc Nation, her management company, did not immediately respond to TIME’s requests for comment.
In a statement to TIME, Garcia’s attorney, Ron Zambrano, says, “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.” He continues, “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.”
According to the lawsuit, Garcia alleges that after the trip he went from earning a monthly rate of $4,000 to being paid for each task he did for Megan The Stallion. The lawsuit says Garcia “essentially worked during all waking hours of a day … always answering calls and running other tasks under Stallion’s direction” and claims he was denied overtime pay and regular breaks. In June 2023, when Garcia was already planning on quitting, Roc Nation told him that his “services were no longer needed,” per the lawsuit.
NBC reports that Garcia is seeking more than six figures in damages. According to the lawsuit, he is also fighting for unpaid wages, interest on the unpaid wages, unpaid overtime wages, and other employee benefits at the legal rate.
“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,” he tells NBC. “So I just really just want to encourage people to advocate for themselves.”
