Megan Thee Stallion was born Megan Pete in Houston in 1995, to Joseph Pete Jr. and Holly Thomas, also an aspiring rapper. Thomas often brought her daughter to recording sessions, inadvertently giving her the bug for music. Though Megan began writing raps at 14, Thomas told her she needed to be 21 before she could pursue rapping as a career. In 2013, while attending Prairie View A&M University, Megan began uploading videos of herself freestyling to social media and quickly went viral. By early 2018, she secured a deal with 1501 Certified Entertainment and released her first EP, Tina Snow, that summer.

Megan’s popularity continued to soar and in 2019, she was named among XXL’s Freshman Class, with her cypher verse garnering significant praise. In 2020, Megan released a remix of her single “Savage” featuring Beyoncé, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Megan earned her second No. 1 single with Cardi B’s “WAP” just a few months later. Megan’s debut album, Good News, arrived in November 2020 and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Her sophomore album, Traumazine, followed in 2022 and landed at No. 4. As Megan’s career was exploding, her mother died in March 2019. To honor her mom’s wishes, Megan returned to school at Texas Southern University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in health administration in 2021.

But Megan’s meteoric rise to success has been marred in controversy. In 2020, the self-proclaimed H-Town Hottie accused Canadian rapper Tory Lanez of shooting her in the foot following a rowdy night out with Kylie Jenner. In December of 2022, Tory Lanez was convicted on three felony charges: assault with a semi-automatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm and negligent discharge of a firearm. He was taken into custody as soon as the verdict was read.