Megan Thee Stallion tells all about Tory Lanez and depression in new documentary

Megan Thee Stallion lays it all bare and more in her newly released Prime Video documentary, Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words. The two-hour film, which premiered last night at the TCL Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, examines the Houston rapper's simultaneous rise to fame and the aftermath of a highly publicized shooting involving Tory Lanez, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in connection with the incident.

Directed by Nneka Onuorah, the film is a frank, harrowing examination of the emotional toll that manifests itself when trauma plays out in the court of public opinion. Throughout the film, Megan openly sheds tears and shares her deepest fears as her talent as a musician continues to grow. But she describes being unable to enjoy it for the most part, plagued by a lack of self-confidence and trust in a world that constantly questions her truth.

Before you dive into the film, now available to stream on Amazon, first find out what to expect from Megan's latest news.

The doc focuses primarily on the Tory Lanez shooting

Megan has had an astronomical rise over the last half decade and has been in the music industry since the beginning. As with any superstar's career, there are as many ups as there are downs, and the documentary focuses primarily on the biggest low point of all: Lanez shooting her in the feet after a night of drinking. We see the anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts that manifest in the years that follow, and the lack of trust she has in others after her best friend Kelsey Nicole subsequently cheats on her.

It's understandable that this is the focus of the documentary, and you witness how deeply the shooting affected her. She fears performing on stage because a Lanez supporter might try to harm her. Some days she can't get out of bed because she's afraid. She finds it difficult to understand why not a single person has her back. Anyone looking for insight into other very public aspects of her life and career in recent years — her fight with Nicki Minaj, her legal troubles — should look elsewhere.

Megan had to make the heartbreaking decision to end her mother's life

The documentary initially focuses on her upbringing and the close relationship she had with her late mother. Footage from the early days of her rapping ambitions shows her mother, who was also her manager, teaching Megan how to correctly place certain words in her rhymes and making ad hoc music videos from lascivious angles.

You get a sense of how much Megan's mother meant to her, not only as a parental figure but also as an inspiration for her rap career. Through animated vignettes, Megan shares how she watched her mother write raps when she was young and how it inspired her to kickstart her own rap career. She describes how she was first shown a YouTube video of her rapping and how she was her biggest fan as she performed in clubs and beyond. (At one point she shows a clip of her rehearsal on a stage while her mother, alone in the pit, cheers her on.)

Just as her career was about to begin, Megan receives a call from her mother saying she is not feeling well and needs to be taken to the hospital. They learn that she has a tumor in her brain, and not long after, her mother signals that it is more serious than they thought. Megan remembers the harrowing experience of having to unplug after her mother lost brain activity. “When I realized she wasn't coming back, I just thought, damn, I can't keep her like this, because I knew she wouldn't have wanted to stay like that. So I had to make the decision to pull the plug and she just passed away the next day.”

“Yes bitch, I lied to Gayle King”

The rumor mill surrounding the Tory Lanez shooting takes up a lot of space in Megan's documentary, as does the actual toll it took on her. Interspersed are clips of socialites like Joe Budden and Akademiks casting doubt on their claims in the case, as well as flashes of social media posts in which some users even said Lanez should have quit the job.

So many doubts have been raised about Megan's claims that we see her in bed with Gayle King after an interview in which she denied having a sexual relationship with Lanez. “Why don’t we talk about the damn shooting? “Everything distracted from the shooting,” she said. “I used to have so much confidence and I was… There would never have been a time where someone would have asked me to fuck someone and I would have been like, 'So?' Yeah, I did that shit. I like fucking, what about that? But the way they denigrated me as that type of person made me doubt myself.”

Therefore, she admitted to having relations with Lanez, but with the caveat that this was just a distraction from the main point. “Yeah, bitch, I lied to Gayle King, bitch,” she continued. “First of all, I didn’t even know this bitch was even going to ask me about this shit. She wanted to talk about the shooting. Why are you asking me about the bloody Tory? That's not what this is about. Even if it was me, I've fucked that n-like once, maybe twice in a drunken night. But you kept getting me to death.”

In 2022, she secretly took a mental health break

At the height of her career at the time, Megan was scheduled to take the stage on NBC's “Saturday Night Live” as both host and musical guest. Moments earlier, we see her sitting down with Roc Nation's Sam Riddle to discuss her upcoming commitments. “I feel like I'm going crazy, Sam, like I'm going to lose my mind. And I feel like I have to stop,” she says, her fear clearly noticeable. Riddle then guides them through the following weeks – “I have to do this,” Megan says dejectedly – before they arrive at an open month that leads to their first dates in Australia and New Zealand.

At this point, Megan has shared that her mental health is suffering, and we see that manifest in her “SNL” rendition of the aptly titled “Anxiety.” As tears stream down her face during the performance, the cameras pan to the green room where her teammates react. “I don’t think that’s a good thing, I think she’s stressed,” one said. Megan analyzes her performance backstage and is unhappy with how it went while her team tries to lift her up. Then comes news that robbers broke into her home in California, knowing she was rehearsing for the gig, and that Drake left a verse on a song in which he claimed Megan lied about Lanez shooting her .

All of this culminates in a much-needed mental health retreat. She plans it for two weeks starting in November 2022, but extends it by a month and cancels her shows in Australia. Cut to a month later when Megan returns and shares her experiences with her team. “The bitch disappeared into my own world,” she said. “I'm fine, it might sound stupid but I've been on a spa retreat and done so many different therapies and I just feel like a new slut.”

Megan hasn't fully healed from the shooting

Even after Tory Lanez was convicted of shooting Megan in 2020, Megan still doesn't feel completely exonerated. Much of the film deals with the damaging effects that being scrutinized and judged by the court of public opinion had on her, and how helpless and frightened she felt even as her star continued to rise. One of the most satisfying moments in the film comes when Megan waits with her manager in her backyard for the verdict in the Lanez case. She sits listlessly, staring into the distance as the sun sets, when she receives the news that Lanez has been convicted of three serious crimes.

It's a cathartic moment not only for the film, but also for her life. She weeps openly, thanking God for justice and clinging to the hope that it will give her the reparation she has sought for years. Only, that's not the case.

“I really thought that once he was convicted and went to prison, I would be a new woman, and I thought I would be great and just be the Megan Thee Stallion that I always wanted to be. No. “I still have to deal with people being mad at me every day for saying what happened to me,” she says. But it comes with an asterisk. “I feel like I'm at a point where I really don't care. All I care about is my damn self. For the first time since my mother was alive, I'm taking care of myself because I want to feel good. Everything I do is for me. And I don't feel like I'm working at a million percent now, but I definitely feel like I'm working better. I’m hopeful for what’s next.”