Megan Thee Stallion has built an ironclad ethos around her star persona: Real Hot Girl Shit is all about confidence, knowing your worth, and not allowing anyone to impose on that. Her discography often operates as a set of commandments that echo these guidelines. In the first trailer for her upcoming documentary In Her Words, the rapper reflects on a dark period in her life where she lost sight of her own voice.
“I think I really forgot who I was,” Megan says in the clip, looking back to 2019 when her career hit an explosive stride just as her mother died. “When life started getting crazy, I didn’t have her.” She credits her mom, a Houston rapper known as Holly-Wood, as putting the fire of hip-hop inside of her. “Music has always been in my life. I wouldn’t be here without my mom,” she adds. “My mama was like a gangster rapper. I was like, when I get older, I really want to be like that.”
And thus, Megan Thee Stallion emerged. She notes that she was happiest then but soon found that derailed by a series of circumstances outside of her control. Two weeks after her mother’s death, her great-grandmother also died. Then, in July 2020, Megan was shot in her feet by recording artist Tory Lanez following an argument. This led to a years-long legal battle and the mass antagonization of the rapper by people who refused to believe her. In August 2023, Lanez was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the shooting.
“The shooting, the betrayal. I was definitely getting a little too engulfed in social media,” Megan says in the trailer, recalling having thoughts along the lines of: “Everybody hates me.” At the beginning of the clip, she reflects on a time when she wanted to call it quits and cancel all of her performances. “I’m not having fun right now. I don’t want to do it,” she says. “And I feel like, how can I be Megan Thee Stallion and I’m not having fun?” It went against her ethos.
“I really had a real breakdown. I think Megan Thee Stallion is trying to protect Megan Pete, and it’s time for that part in the movie where I get up off my ass, and I do something about it,” she says, pulling her goals back into focus. Tearfully, she adds: “I want people to understand how this is affecting me. I want people to see how I feel.” In a clip from a public appearance, she tells the audience: “You can get help. There are people that are willing to listen. We gotta holler about it. We gotta scream about it. No matter how hard it is. To be heard, you have to speak.”
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