Streamer being sued by Megan Thee Stallion testifies as first witness in defamation trial
Milagro Cooper will continues testifying on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Miami. Megan also is expected to testify.
An online commentator testified Monday that she intentionally directed her followers to a digitally altered, sexually explicit video of rapper Megan Thee Stallion because the video was public and her followers were asking about it.
“Unfortunately, sex tapes are something of the public interest. It came up, and I spoke about it,” Milagro Cooper testified as the first witness in a federal trial that accuses her coordinating with rapper Daystar “Tory Lanez” Peterson, who is in prison for shooting Megan in 2020.
Cooper’s lawyer said in her opening statement that Cooper, an “online influencer” known as Milagro Gramz, didn’t publicize or share the video on her social media, which is key to Megan’s claim that Milagro knowingly shared a digitally altered sexual depiction of Megan. The three other claims are defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and cyberstalking.
Jurors later heard audio clips of Milagro telling her followers that she’d liked the video and posted “go to my likes.” They also heard her question whether the video is real.
“This has got to be A.I. [artificial intelligence],” Milagro said.
The jury of five men and four women saw the obscene video during Megan’s lawyer Marie Hayrapetian’s 20-minute opening statement.
Before she played it, Hayrapetian said she wanted “to acknowledge how disturbing this is.”
“Imagine having to sit in court and watch this play for a room full of strangers. That’s what we’re asking Megan to do today, but you need to see it to understand what Milagro Cooper promoted,” said Hayrapetian, an associate in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP’s Los Angeles office.
The approximately 45-second video included commentary from Milagro as she played it for viewers on her live stream. “Watch how this post jump … I just liked it and I tweeted ‘go to my likes.’”
“I apologize to everyone in this courtroom for having to see that, especially to Megan,” Hayrapetian said. “But Milagro Cooper made the choice to promote it.”
Hayrapetian began her opening by playing audio of the gunshots that Daystar “Tory Lanez” Peterson fired at Megan on July 12, 2020. She told jurors he was convicted in December 2022, and the California Court of Appeal affirmed his convictions last week. She played an excerpt of Milagro discussing Megan that begins, “At the end of the day, a bitch lying on somebody is low down. So believe what the fuck you want to believe.” Milagro goes on to say she wants to “slap” Megan.
“This case is about someone who wasn’t there that night, the defendant, Milagro Cooper. She didn’t see the fear or the blood or the gun, but she saw something else: Her shot had the spotlight,” Hayrapetian said. “This case is about what Milagro Cooper did with her shot at the spotlight.”
Hayrapetian said jurors will learn “how she turned attacking Megan into her brand, how she coordinated with Tory Lanez and his team, how she built her platform by tearing Megan down.”
She said the case “is not about whether Tory shot Megan. That has already been decided: He did. This case is about Milagro Cooper’s continued effort to undo what’s already been done, to free Tory.”
The first thing Milagro’s lawyer Nathacha Bien-Aime told jurors in her opening was, “Yes. Megan Pete was shot.” But she said “whether he did or not, that case, that tragedy, that happened in California.”
“The plaintiff desperately wants to drive a California criminal trial across the country, to replay it for you here in Miami, Florida,” Bien-Aime said.
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Bien-Aime said “they want to talk about this criminal trial...because it’s, there’s emotion.”
“It creates a distraction, because that’s what they’re trying to do, because they cannot prove this conspiracy that they are trying to pin on my client,” she said.
“Despite how vulgar it is, despite how colorful it is, despite how much profanity she uses. That’s not a conspiracy, and that’s what they’re trying to prove,” she continued.
Bien-Aime said jurors are “going to see something happening deliberately throughout this trial.”
“They’re going to try to distract you. They’re going to try to elicit sympathy. They’re going to talk about trauma. They’re going to talk about her emotions,” she said. Bien-Aime said Megan “is allowed to feel anything that she feels.”
“We’re not saying that she’s not allowed to feel. This courtroom is not saying she’s not allowed to feel. But tears are not proof,” Bien-Aime said.
Bien-Aime emphasized that Milagro didn’t publish the altered video of Megan, and that she didn’t know about it until her followers alerted her to it.
She said Milagro’s “job is literally to comment on things that her audience and reviewers want her to comment on.”
“Frankly, she’s not an A.I. specialist. The law does not require her to know what an altered video looks like,” Bien-Aime said.
“Ms. Cooper is no different than any of the millions of Americans online on a daily basis that are speaking their opinions, speaking about what they see, talking about what’s being reported,” Bien-Aime said. “Some of your favorite comedians would be sitting right next to Ms. Cooper if they were being held to the same standard that she’s being held to by the plaintiff.”
Bien-Aime said Milagro is a mother “married for 13 years to her high school sweetheart”.
“She’s a believer. In college, she got straight As while she was majoring in criminal justice. She’s even got training in victim advocacy,” Bien-Aime said.
“It’s not like she hates this woman, and she’s been all day, all night, online, just cyberbullying her,” Bien-Aime said. “That’s not the case. Ms. Milagro, the real woman, has built a legitimate business.”
“This case is about commentary, not this conspiracy that they’re trying to convince you of and trying to make you believe. Ms. Cooper’s criticisms are protected. This is retaliation,” Bien-Aime continued.
Megan’s lawyer John O’Sullivan, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Miami office, asked Milagro about hearing the gunfire during Lanez’s trial.
“Did you have an open mind on what had happened that night?” O’Sullivan said.
“Absolutely I had an open mind,” Milagro answered.
“OK. You thought Tory could be guilty?” O’Sullivan asked.
“He could have been guilty based on the evidence that could have been presented when you go to trial,” Milagro answered.
“You hadn’t already made up your mind that Tory was innocent?” O’Sullivan asked.
“I had an idea of what I figured could happen, which would be speculation, but once again, it was imperative that I went to the trial,” Milagro answered.
O’Sullivan questioned Milagro about an Instagram post that was evidence in Lanez’s trial in which Lanez’s account replies “that’s not true” to someone who says “people saying Kelsey’s shot her.”
And as he tried to show a connection between her and Lanez, he asked her about her promotion of his music video “Cap” in which he’s in a butcher shop chopping a horse leg with the “HGS” written on specials menu behind him. Megan refers to her and her phrase Hot Girl Summer. O’Sullivan seemed to be implying through his questioning of Milagro on Monday that she highlighted the horse’s leg to promote the video in coordination with Lanez, but Milagro testified she was merely advancing a question debated by her followers.
“He was in a butcher shop. Who eats horses? So actually, I don’t believe it actually was a horse’s leg,” Milagro testified.
“A lot of people were speculating,” she continued. “When I’m doing commentary, it’s not about what I want to talk about, because otherwise I’d sit up there and talk to myself. I have to make sure that I’m on the pulse with what my audience wants to talk about.”
Milagro spoke so fast that the court reporter typing a transcript of the proceedings stopped her several times, and Judge U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga warned her: “This is not a video clip. This is not a podcast. … Please slow down. She’s asked you several times.”
O’Sullivan displayed texts between Milagro and Lanez’s father, Sonstar Peterson, from February 2022, about Milagro traveling to Miami. Mialgro said she was interviewing Peterson, and O’Sullivan asked if it’s common for an interview subject to be paid by the person she’s interviewing. Milagro said it was and said their arrangement was “very custom.”
Milagro also testified she hasn’t read the California Court of Appeal’s 46-page affirming Lanez’s convictions, which was issued last week.
“I am in a federal trial, and that’s where my attention is,” Milagro said. She also said the ruling is “of less interest” because she’s under a gag order in the case that prohibits her from speaking publicly about related issues such as Lanez’s convictions.
O’Sullivan referenced one of his team’s most valuable pre-trial orders when he asked Milagro about missing text messages that a forensic technician analyzed before trial.
Jurors will be instructed at the end of trial that Milagro deleted texts and the WhatsApp messaging service in violation of a legal notice. Jurors also will be told they “should assume and infer” Milagro intended to deprive Megan “of the evidence in the deleted messages, that at least some of the deleted messages related to the claims in this case were about Plaintiff, and that these deleted messages were unfavorable to Defendant.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid also ruled on Sunday that Lanez should be sanctioned $20,000 and his lawyer, Crystal Morgan, $5,000, for their disruptive conduct during his Nov. 14 deposition.
Reid’s ruling recommends jurors be told that Lanez refused to answer three questions: “(1) How he first came to know Defendant Cooper; (2) Whether Mr. Peterson communicated with Defendant Cooper; and (3) Whether he sent Ms. Cooper Instagram direct messages or text messages.”
Jurors have not yet heard about the specific questions Lanez dodged in his deposition, but they heard a lot about Milagro’s deleted texts during her testimony on Monday.
Judge Altonaga overruled several “asked and answered” objections from Milagro’s lawyer Jeremy McLymont as O’Sullivan questioned Milagro about the deletions that a forensic analysis identifies. He mentioned the multi-hour pretrial hearing and asked Milagro if she was denying she deleted texts with Peterson.
“Is there anything you take accountability for in that?” O’Sullivan asked.
Milagro testified that she believes she saved “what y’all asked for” and said she was “not advised properly.”
“It was not my goal or aim to ever try to deceive you guys,” she testified.
Milagro testified “I do feel that Megan got hurt” but the truth of what happened is indecipherable and “the case started to look like it doesn’t matter what you present.”
Jurors also saw a text Milagro sent Lanez early on, before his trial, that said, “I don’t know how your energy is, but everything’s been so crazy that I can only imagine. Idk how you’re going your life tonight, but if you gave me that or any exclusive it’d change my life. I’ve been dying to know why you asked for my number. Regardless of whatever you do and how you do it you’re not a throw away. No judgement holds weight to that of The Most High. I wish you the best.”
Milagro testified she hoped Lanez would grant her one exclusive interview, but she maintained that he didn’t influence her coverage of his case or Megan.
The nine jurors were seated in about 2 1/2 hours Monday morning. I’ll have more about them as the trial progresses. You can read my X/Twitter threads from the courthouse today here and here.
Jurors were told the trial will go until next Wednesday, and they may need to return the Monday after Thanksgiving.
On a final note, I was recognized at the Miami airport on Sunday, so that’s cool.
Previous article:
Trial begins Monday in Megan Thee Stallion's federal defamation lawsuit. Here's a primer.
Trial begins Monday in Miami in a federal defamation lawsuit against an online commentator accused of harassing rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
Court documents:
Nov. 16 contempt order against Lanez
Nov. 13 Megan’s exhibit list
Nov. 13 Megan’s witness list
Oct. 30 judge rejects Lanez’s motion to quash
Oct. 9 sanctions order for deleted texts
Sept. 16 Aidin Ross’ motion to quash
Aug. 14 transcript of Milagro’s deposition
Aug. 1 order re: Lanez’s deposition
April 16 contempt motion for Lanez
April 16 transcript of Lanez’s deposition
Feb. 10 most recent complaint
Dec. 23, 2024 motion to dismiss
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