Following news that Emilio Garcia, a former cameraman for rap star Megan Thee Stallion, is suing the rapper for withholding wages and creating a “hostile work environment,” including forcing him to watch her have sex in a car, another former employee of the rapper has come forward to corroborate some of his claims.
Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, denied Garcia’s allegations soon after they were made, with her attorney, Alex Spiro, telling The Daily Beast, “This is an employment claim for money—with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her. We will deal with this in court.”
Garcia’s suit, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, mentions that he confided in a former makeup artist for Megan Thee Stallion about what he was experiencing while working for her, and makeup artist Akil McCoy has come forward as the likely confidante in question. McCoy tells The Daily Beast that he was very familiar with what happened between Garcia and the rap star. “What I witnessed from Megan was acts of selfishness, lack of integrity and accountability when it came to me, Emilio, and others,” McCoy says via email.
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This isn't the first time McCoy has publicly criticized his former boss. In 2019, an Instagram squabble between the two over crediting his makeup work led to his being served a cease and desist by her attorney, according to TMZ.
One section of Garcia’s suit reads, “After confiding in the Makeup Artist, [Megan Thee Stallion] learned of the [Garcia’s] contemplation of quitting due to [her] possessiveness combined with lack of appropriate pay for the amount of time asked of him.” Another section adds, “Close to other creatives on [Megan Thee Stallion’s] team, [Garcia] confided in [her] former Makeup Artist about considering leaving because [Megan Thee Stallion] had started to hire another Cameraman.”
McCoy says he’s not 100 percent certain that he’s the makeup artist Garcia referred to in the suit, but claims to fit the description: “There’s another makeup artist [Garcia] confided in as well,” he says. “She has only two main artists.”
According to McCoy, Garcia had worked a “state office job” before quitting to “risk it all [to] follow his dreams” and work for Megan Thee Stallion, as mentioned in the lawsuit. McCoy tells The Daily Beast that he witnessed pay disparities for Garcia first-hand. “Our first trip to London [with the rapper] he was not compensated,” he says. “I witnessed Emilio explain to Megan that he quit his [prior] job and was promised to be compensated, yet it never happened.”
McCoy goes on to claim that for Garcia's work on Meek Mill and Future’s Legendary Nights tour from August to October 2019, during which Megan Thee Stallion was a special guest, the cameraman was paid “very low” and “not in a timely manner.” Megan Thee Stallion was just on the cusp of breaking out in 2019, as her first chart topping single “Big Ole Freak” was released in late 2018. She’d sign a management deal with Roc Nation by September. McCoy expressed his excitement about the deal with a Facebook post at the time.
“After she signed her management deal with Roc Nation, they actually opted to use another photographer from the management side and replaced Emilio after he’d already quit his job,” McCoy continues.
Conditions continued to worsen for Garcia “going into the year 2020,” according to McCoy, because “Megan stopped using Emilio, and he was really broke and out of work on both end [sic] which Megan knew.” During that time period, which McCoy alleges lasted about seven months, he says he kept in touch with the then out-of-work cameraman—until things changed again, seemingly for the better. “Megan started back using Emilio,” he says, adding that he was “happy he was getting his time back.”
McCoy also claims to have witnessed Megan Thee Stallion make “sickening remarks” about a different employee, stylist Todd White, in 2019. He says those comments “made me question not only her as a person but her integrity.” As for what happened next for Garcia after he was allegedly “brought back into the fold” of working for Megan Thee Stallion, McCoy doesn’t know, but he tells The Daily Beast that “overall, justice is due for Emilio.”
Garcia’s attorney Ronald Zambrano told The Daily Beast in an email this week, “We have to stop expecting that those who work for stars should just deal with this egregious and illegal behavior and suck it up and be thankful for their access.” As for McCoy’s claims, Megan Thee Stallion’s attorney tells The Daily Beast simply, “This is false.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives for Megan Thee Stallion, who declined to give an on the record response, as well as Todd White, who did not respond to inquiries.
