Megan Thee Stallion scored two major legal wins this week, after a judge granted her the go-ahead to release the remix of BTS’ Butter that she is featured on, and Tory Lanez was forced to pay more bail for violating her restraining order against him.
The rapper had initially planned to release the Butter remix this Friday, but according to documents filed by her and her lawyers in Harris County, Texas on Tuesday, her record label 1501 and its CEO Carl Crawford were blocking her from releasing it.
The documents — which were obtained by Variety and refer to Stallion by her legal name Megan Pete — stated that she would “suffer immediate and irreparable injury without [the] court's intervention” in the situation.
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“If Pete is not allowed to release a new track this Friday on which she is the featured artist in a remix with BTS of the song called, “Butter,” her music career will suffer irreparable damage, including a devastating impact to her relationships with her fans and with other recording artists in the music industry,” the rapper and her lawyers argued. “Such irreparable injury to her personal goodwill and the silencing of her artistic expression in music cannot be compensated in the way of monetary damages.”
The documents also allege that Crawford and 1501 “fraudulently induced Pete to sign an exclusive contract with them,” and that since signing with them, they “have done nothing to help Pete grow her career in the music industry and have only put up roadblocks in an attempt to stifle her artistic expression as a music artist and irreparably harm her career.”
This is not the first time Stallion has had to take legal action against Crawford and 1501. In March of 2020, Stallion and her lawyers successfully obtained a temporary restraining order against them, after they tried to stop the release of her 2020 single SUGA. Crawford and the label had been asked by the judge at the time not to prevent her distributor, 300 Entertainment, from releasing, distributing, or selling any of Stallion’s new records, and not to prevent or limit others from working with her in any manner.
The latest petition was granted Wednesday, clearing Stallion to release the BTS song this Friday as planned.
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This is Stallion’s second legal victory this week, after a Los Angeles court increased Tory Lanez’s bail — from $190,000 to $250,000 — for violating the terms of her restraining order against him. The initial order stated that Lanez was to neither contact Stallion nor come within 100 yards of her, after he was charged with felony assault last summer for allegedly shooting her in both feet after an argument. Since the incident, Lanez has exhibited disturbing behavior, denying Stallion’s allegations (despite the photographic proof of her injuries) on his September 2020 album Daystar — implying that Stallion was lying about the allegations, and also hosted an Instagram live session saying that her claims weren't true but that he still considers the rapper a “friend.”
The decision to increase Lanez’s bail came after he inexplicably appeared in rapper Da Baby’s set at the Rolling Loud music festival last month, shortly after Stallion had performed.
“They could have filed an additional charge based on violating the protective order because that's a violation of law, as well. You do not want to be doing things like this, sir,” the judge told Lanez in a court appearance Monday.
The judge also ordered that, in the future, Lanez is not allowed to be at any events where Stallion will be performing or attending.