Megan Thee Stallion has received an apology from her label boss, 1501 Certified Ent. CEO Carl Crawford, following a lengthy and bitter legal battle.
The Houston Hottie and former MLB player have been at odds since late 2019 when Megan signed a management deal with JAY-Z’s Roc Nation, apparently without the knowledge of 1501.
Months later, Meg filed a lawsuit against 1501 accusing the Houston-based label of blocking her from releasing music and refusing to renegotiate her contract, the terms of which Roc Nation had raised red flags about.
She filed another lawsuit against 1501 in February 2022 asking a judge to declare that her 2021 project Something For Thee Hotties qualifies as an album and therefore counts toward fulfilling her contract. The label countersued the following month, with Crawford calling the project a “bullshit ass mixtape.”
Following the release of her sophomore album Traumazine in August 2022, Meg amended her lawsuit to seek $1 million in damages while claiming her aforementioned project had successfully satisfied her contract with 1501, granting her exit.
While their legal battle appears to still be unresolved, Carl Crawford has expressed his remorse over his falling-out with Megan Thee Stallion, admitting he made “mistakes” while also vowing to stop speaking ill of her in public.
“Me and Megan, we haven’t talked since 2019,” he told TMZ. “We’ve been going through, I guess, what you guys see online and it’s unfortunate because I never wanted to have a situation where I was, you know, going back and forth with her on the internet.
“I never had any problems with Megan Thee Stallion. It’s just the social media stuff, it turned really, really sour. You take this social media part out of it, we don’t have a problem … I’m done with that.”
He added: “You not gon’ hear me mention Megan Thee Stallion name in the media unless I’m doing something like this. You not gon’ see me texting or making a post or doing any of that stuff that would cause social media to go crazy.”
Crawford fanned the flames of their feud last April by posting a video of him linking up with Tory Lanez in a nightclub. Megan accused Lanez of shooting her in the feet during a drunken dispute two years prior; he was convicted this past December.
Looking back on that provocative post, Crawford admitted it was a “petty” move on his part and clarified that he has no allegiance to Tory Lanez.
“Oh, the thing is with that, I don’t stand with nobody in that situation,” he explained. “That’s none of my business. You get caught up in the internet stuff and doing stuff just to — I don’t know if we can just use the word petty, ’cause there’s been a lot of petty stuff going on.
“I normally don’t do stuff like that. I think I just got wrapped up in the whole scheme of things that was going on. We all make mistakes. I’m not on nobody’s side with that. I was just… I don’t even know.”
Crawford chalked his conduct down to his “competitive nature” from being a former professional athlete.
“Just call it, I don’t know, competitive nature,” he said. “Playing sports, you’re used to people yelling at you and you go back and forth, so I kinda got caught up in that game a little bit which I probably shouldn’t have done because I’m in a different game now, and I can’t just treat it as a fan yelling at me and I get to yell back.”
Keen to repair 1501’s “bad” reputation following their high-profile dispute with Megan, Carl Crawford recently hired industry veteran Kai “Verse” Tyler as the label’s new president.
Speaking with TMZ, Tyler also insisted that 1501 has no animosity toward Megan Thee Stallion, JAY-Z or Roc Nation, and defended Crawford’s link-up with Tory Lanez as the naivety of an inexperienced music executive.
“At the end of the day, [Carl] doesn’t know him,” he said. “Once again, a guy that doesn’t know the business of music and that politics side … ‘Don’t stand with this player because the Red Sox might not like it later.’ He doesn’t understand that’s how we move in the business of music.”
Megan Thee Stallion has yet to respond to Carl Crawford’s apology. The “Savage” hitmaker has been keeping a low profile since Tory Lanez’s shooting trial began in December, but she did resurface earlier this month to celebrate her 28th birthday.
A video that circulated on social media captured Megan’s shocked reaction after being surprised by friends and family at her birthday party, which was held at what appeared to be a swanky restaurant.
[via]
