Hip-hop producer Metro Boomin is accused of rape in lawsuit
Entertainment
An attorney for the 31-year-old St. Louis-born producer immediately denied the allegations.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles woman has filed a lawsuit alleging that Metro Boomin, a Grammy-nominated producer who has worked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B, raped her in 2016 and she became pregnant from the attack.
The producer’s attorney calls the accusations false and said the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court is “a pure shakedown.”
Vanessa LeMaistre, 38, says in the lawsuit that she became friends with Metro Boomin, whose legal name is Leland Wayne, after the death of her 9-month-old son. While visiting him in a recording studio months later, she blacked out and woke on a bed to find Wayne raping her, the lawsuit alleges.
She learned she was pregnant from the attack a few weeks later, the suit says.
An attorney for the 31-year-old St. Louis-born producer immediately denied the allegations.
“This is a pure shakedown. These are false accusations,” Lawrence Hinkle II said in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Wayne refused to pay her months ago, and he refuses to pay her now. Mr. Wayne will defend himself in court. He will file a claim for malicious prosecution once he prevails.”
Wayne curated the soundtrack to “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and co-produced most of the songs on the album. His 2022 album “Heroes & Villains,” featuring contributions from John Legend and The Weeknd and Travis Scott, was nominated for a Grammy for best rap album. He has also worked with Future, Kendrick Lamar, Offset, 21 Savage and A$AP Rocky.
LeMaistre said in the suit that she met Wayne in the spring of 2016 at a party in Las Vegas and in the months that followed they met up several times and she “believed that they had bonded over the ability of music to help people in their darkest moments.”
Around September, she visited him at a California recording studio where she was given a shot of alcohol and took half a bar of Xanax.
