On Monday (August 7), Tory Lanez is set to receive his sentence for shooting fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in 2020. He was found guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having an unregistered loaded gun in a vehicle, and discharge with gross negligence in December 2022. The hearing began this morning, as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford reportedly received more than 70 letters of support from Lanez’s legal team, where family members, celebrities, and employees at the jail Lanez resides at vouched for a light sentence for the Toronto emcee.
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The most notable of the letters that came in, though, was from Australian rapper Iggy Azalea. According to Legal Affairs and Trials reporter Meghann Cuniff, who has followed the case closely, Azalea asked Judge Herriford in her letter to give Lanez a sentence “that is transformational, not life destroying.”
While this may seem like a curious friendship to some, Lanez and Azalea actually sparked dating rumors last fall, around the same time Lanez revealed to TMZ that he was helping Azalea craft her next studio album.
“We’ve been working on it for like a solid two and a half months,” he said. “Then she went on tour, so we’re about to get back to it now.”
When pressed about associating herself with Lanez, who had been under fire for the widely-publicized assault he committed against Megan Thee Stallion, Azalea stood ten toes down in her support for him.
“You’re all very welcome to speak your opinion freely about me… just as long as we all have an understanding: you are having a monologue & not a discussion with me – because (respectfully) my bills remain paid without your two cents,” she wrote in a now-deleted tweet.
Along with Azalea’s letter, Judge Herriford revealed that one of the aforementioned jailers’ letters to the court said that he and Lanez talked about his crime “in detail,” and spoke about “what he could have done to prevent it.” On top of this, one of the jail chaplains spoke this morning during the hearing, mentioning that Lanez has started a daily prayer in jail, helping to “lessen tensions among inmates,” according to Cuniff.
[RELATED: Tory Lanez’s Team Asks for Probation Ahead of Sentencing]
Lanez’s father Sonstar Peterson, who notoriously had a loud outburst at the December hearing where his son was found guilty, also spoke to the judge this morning, apologizing for his past actions in court. Herriford would eventually go on to say that he felt Lanez’s crime was not done with a “high-level of callousness,” although it is currently unclear how this opinion could affect his sentencing.
All of this occurred during the morning session of the hearing before the court was adjourned for a 90-minute lunch period.
Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images
