Megan Thee Stallion Talks Vulnerability And Rebuilding: “People Think I’m This Evil Person”
Many fell in love with Megan Thee Stallion’s early videos on YouTube, including her Stalli Freestyle and Hottie World series. For me, it was seeing her perform at SXSW 2018 for a HipHopWeekly showcase in Austin, TX. The Houston star hit the stage before an entire crowd of women—who jampacked the prior empty space. In her Tina Snow era at the time, Meg performed some of her early popular songs that were already making waves in her hometown. Wearing a cut-off, cropped gray hoodie, blue jeans and her 1501 chain at the time, the then 23-year-old shut down the stage with well known tracks, “No Heart” and “Cocky AF.”
Many freestyles and viral moments later, the same confident “femcee” catapulted to an even bigger status of fame with her hit single “Big Ole Freak” — which became her first Billboard 100 entry at No. 99. “Savage (Remix)” featuring Beyoncé would become her first No. 1 song in 2020. Surely on “cloud 9” with her mother Holly Thomas by her side, Megan was surrounded by the right team and support system to get her to the next level— unfortunately, it wouldn’t stay that way forever.
2019-2020 was a tumultuous time for Meg, as both her mother and grandmother passed away two weeks a part, legal issues caused her to step away from 1501 Certified (later signing to Roc Nation), and she found herself being shot in the foot by someone she trusted. The aftermath of the shocking incident would go on for three years in the courts before she would receive justice in 2023: seeing Tory Lanez be sentenced to 10 years in prison.
No amount of Grammy-Awards, college degrees, collaborations with her dream artists or exciting opportunities were enough to mentally cope with all of the post traumatic stress she felt, mixed with commentary from the public.
“I had to start realizing if you don’t want to like somebody, nothing that they’re going to do or say is going to make you like them,” Megan told VIBE. “If you have already made up in your mind ‘I don’t like you’ there’s nothing that I was going to be able to do or say to change your mind about that.” As there are many who have publicly sided with the Canadian artist and many more who have publicly showed support for Megan, the time has come for her to tell her story from her own perspective.
In the trailer for her forthcoming documentary Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words, the “Bigger In Texas” star travels back to her youthful days in Houston, up to being one of the biggest women rappers of today. “How can I be Megan Thee Stallion and I’m not having fun,” she opens up the trailer. Speaking of the importance of having her mother in her life, to how the shooting incident changed her life, to taking her mental health seriously—she admitted in the two-minute clip that “Megan Thee Stallion is trying to protect Megan Pete.”
Through her adversities and setbacks, Megan has continued to use her platform to uplift and inspire, while maintaining her infectious energy as a trailblazer, advocating for mental health and body positivity. Whether it’s delivering high-energy performances or sharing her story of personal growth, she continues to prove that she’s not just a star—she’s a movement.
Ahead of the documentary’s premiere on Amazon Prime on Thursday (Oct. 31), the Houston Hot Girl spoke with VIBE, where she shared the “why” behind telling her story now. Megan also reflected on how she continues to “rebuild” herself from that once local star at SXSW 2018 to the global phenomenon she is today.
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VIBE: What do you feel is the biggest misconception that people have about you?
Megan: A very long list of things. I couldn’t even pinpoint one, but sometimes I feel like people think I’m just like this evil person and I’m really not. I just hope that when people actually watch the documentary, they get to see that I’m human and what I really was going through at that time in my life. What I was really thinking versus what you might’ve seen in the public. They really get to see everything happening in real time from my lens, and I’m excited for people to finally see that part.
As a mental health advocate, is there anything about this documentary coming out that you feel might take a mental toll on you once there’s reception from the public?
I’ve kind of just been at peace with the fact that whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. All I could do is tell my truth. I was in such a dark place at that time. I didn’t even want to do the documentary because I didn’t want to talk about this no more. I didn’t want to talk about any of that part of my life no more. But I feel like the documentary really helped give me closure and hopefully it could do that with the rest of the world and we could keep going forward with life.
Do you feel like you’ve mastered blocking out all negativity?
God is still working on me.
Me too.
I’m definitely not going to say I’m a master at it, but I’ve definitely taken steps towards blocking out negativity. If you know me in real life, you know I do not have social media on my phone. I always handle my social media through my team because I would’ve been fighting the world all day about who I am and my character and what’s the truth and what’s not the truth.
I had to start realizing, if you don’t want to like somebody, nothing that they’re going to do or say is going to make you like them. If you have already made up in your mind ‘I don’t like you’ there’s nothing that I was going to be able to do or say to change your mind about that. I was just tired of letting people that I absolutely would never see in my real life or care about in my real life — be in my head all day.
In the trailer for the documentary, you said that there are times when you don’t feel like yourself—you don’t feel like Megan Pete. What do you do nowadays to recenter yourself?
It’s a lot of playing with the dogs going on over here. I have so many animals. I watch a lot of Anime. Obviously I’m writing music all the time. I work out a lot. I just do a lot of things that are good for my own self-care. Working out definitely put me on a journey of rebuilding myself. I wanted to go on this journey to be stronger, and I was like,’ well, I guess the first step would be in the gym.’ So I would take out all my emotions in the gym and that’s how we got to where we are today.
What was the scariest part about putting this documentary out for you?
Being this open and honest and just being that vulnerable.
I’ve been following you since your days of Tina Snow and the Stalli Freestyle and when you were doing your [signature] dance. Do you feel like the level of fame that you have now has affected your love for Hip-Hop and being creative?
Definitely. When people saw me doing all the Tina Snow stuff and rapping in front of the car—just anything you saw early 2019—that was me and my mama. My mama was recording all that stuff for me. I was everywhere with her. I didn’t even care about hanging out with nobody because I knew I was going to be with my girl. So when I didn’t have her anymore, I think that’s when I started looking to other people for their opinion of me, because my mama was always telling me how great I was. Or if it was a critique, I knew it was coming from a place of ‘I really care about you and I feel like you can go harder.’ And it wasn’t like to tear me down. It was genuinely because she wanted to see me do better. So, when I didn’t have that [anymore], I started looking to people I didn’t know for the encouragement or for the constructive criticism—but I started realizing it wasn’t coming from a place of love or genuine ‘I want to see you do better.’
It was just coming from a place of ‘I need to humble you, girl, because you think you the sh*t.’ And it was just like everybody was trying to tear me down. Especially when everything happened and everybody was giving me hell, I kind of felt like I don’t even want to make music no more because nobody cares about what I have to say. I could tell nobody cared about me, period. I was just so low and I was like, ‘forget all of this.’ But then I just kind of had to pull myself out of that hole and start thinking about, well, ‘what would your mama say to you?’ Versus trying to ask other people or trying to find her in other people. I had to find her in myself.
Wow. Just thinking back to that time in your career, your early career—do you miss those days when there was less noise from the industry?
I do miss it, but I’m glad that I grew to this woman that I am right now.
Speaking of the woman you are right now, you dropped the [Megan] Deluxe and the “Bigger in Texas” video. That kind of brings me back to the Megan Thee Stallion I met at SXSW 2018.
Yeah.
Can you talk about the concept behind the Deluxe and what you are trying to convey to your fans with this extension of songs?
I think with this new batch of music that I just put out, it came from this Megan Thee Stallion. Not a Megan Thee Stallion that was in a panic of, ‘Oh my gosh. I don’t think I’m going to be able to drop my music’ or ‘somebody trying to tell me what to do’ or a Megan Thee Stallion that cared about what anybody on the internet had to say about me. I think it came from a happy place of me making music and being comfortable with myself again and having that confidence in myself. I just went in the booth and said, ‘You know what? I’m about to make the music that I would listen to [even] if I wasn’t me and if they rock with it, they rock with it.’ And when I put it out, I was like, ‘I can’t believe it.’ I think I just had to get my confidence back again.
What are your top three favorite songs from the Deluxe album?
It changes every day because I’ve been sitting with these songs for a while. I guess today my favorites would definitely be “Bigger In Texas.” I love “TYG” with Spiritbox and I love “Best Friend.”
With Megan you tried different sounds. Are there any other sounds that you would like to tap into that you haven’t experimented with yet?
I don’t know. I love everything I’m doing right now. What I really wanted to try was in that Metal kind of Rock world, so I had to call Courtney back. I had to call Spiritbox back and I was like, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s try it.’ And it came out fire. I think I honestly want to keep tapping into that world because I really enjoy Rock music, I enjoy Metal music, so I’m going to keep going over there.
The documentary is dropping on Halloween and you’ve had your Hottieween series in the past. Is there any significance to dropping it on Halloween?
I knew I wasn’t going to personally be with all my hotties on Halloween, so the ones that’s going to stay at home—I wanted them to have me in their living room or wherever they’re [going to watch] the documentary at. I feel like it would be a good thing for the hotties to do if they’re not going out.
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