According to TMZ, Megan Thee Stallion has been threatened with legal action by Richard Kanka, the father of Megan Kanka, who in 1994 was abducted, raped, and murdered by her neighbor Jesse Timmendequas, who had previously been convicted of child molestation. The national attention prompted by the murder led to the creation of Megan’s Law, an expansion of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which requires communities to be notified when a person convicted of sexual crimes moves into a neighborhood.
Kanka’s threat was prompted by a line referencing Megan’s Law from Megan Thee Stallion’s new single “Hiss.” In it, the rapper denigrates a rival — thought by fans to be Nicki Minaj — with the taunt, “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law.” Fans have speculated that the jab was aimed at Minaj, with whom Thee Stallion appears to have fallen out, as Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, was sentenced to a year of house arrest in 2022 for failing to register as a sex offender when the couple first moved to California. The couple is also embroiled in a lawsuit with Jennifer Hough, as Hough claims that they have been harassing her to recant her 1995 testimony so as to have Petty’s original conviction overturned and his name removed from the federal sex offenders’ registry.
While Kafka has not actually filed a lawsuit — and would have pretty dubious legal grounds for doing so in the first place — it’s clear he disapproves of the lyrical reference to the law named after his daughter. While he hadn’t heard the song as of TMZ’s writing, he was disappointed that the lyrics were explicit and that the law was mentioned specifically to take down a rival, instead of shedding light on the tragedy.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.