She got shot and swindled in the same year and came out of both owning everything.
At a glance
- Known for
- Three #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits, three Grammy Awards, coining 'Hot Girl Summer'
- Before fame
- Sat in on her mother's rap recording sessions instead of going to daycare
- Off-screen
- Graduated from Texas Southern with a health administration degree while touring
Rise to Fame
Freestyle videos from parking lots did what a label couldn't. She signed with 1501 Certified Entertainment in 2018, handing them 60% of her recording revenue. 'Hot Girl Summer' spread past the single into something the internet claimed as its own.
The 'Savage' remix got a Beyonce verse in late April 2020 and went straight to #1. Three months later, 'WAP' with Cardi B pulled 93 million streams in its first week and broke Billboard's streaming record. Two number-ones in one summer, both collaborations. She was clearly carrying them as much as they were carrying her.
In the Spotlight
Owning your masters sounds like a talking point until you've spent three years in court over one bad contract. She settled with 1501 in 2023 and signed with Warner on terms that keep everything under Hot Girl Productions. 'Hiss,' her first independent release, debuted at #1. Nobody needed to explain what the independence was for.
The Tory Lanez shooting still follows her. He got 10 years after being convicted on all three felony charges, but the verdict didn't stop the online harassment or the conspiracy theories. She sold 240,000 tickets on her arena tour anyway. The career keeps expanding. The fallout doesn't stop.
Side Notes
Recording sessions were her daycare. Her mother rapped under the name Holly-Wood and brought young Megan to the studio. Holly managed her early career until a brain tumor killed her in March 2019, taking the manager and the mother in the same blow. Her father had died when she was 15. Both parents gone before she turned 25.
She finished a health administration degree at Texas Southern in 2021 as a tribute to her mother, then named her foundation after both parents. The Hot Girl persona runs on confidence and volume. The person behind it has been processing loss in real time since before she was famous.