On the other hand, In Her Words, directed by Nneka Onuorah, feels like a bid for closure, covering some of the more trying moments in Pete’s recent past—from losing her mother, Holly Thomas, in 2019, to being shot by rapper Tory Lanez in 2020. Earlier that year, just as the pandemic was beginning, Pete’s “Savage” had exploded on TikTok, sending her star skyrocketing. All of it—the grief, the trauma, the fast and furious fame—took a toll.
“I’m kind of supposed to be above the criticism and the haters and the trolls and whatever, but I’m, like, a regular human being,” Pete says during our call. In Her Words cedes space to the person behind the swaggering stage persona: “You may have seen me at a show, but you’ll be surprised at what was really going on.”
But that was then: Now that she’s assumed the “boss seat,” she is putting the full force of her influence behind the projects and the causes that she believes in, from the launch of Chicas Divertidas (“I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now—I’m excited for the hotties to see how smooth it is”) to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign (“I just want the hotties to know, if you’re not registered to vote, I don’t know what you got going on but I need you to get out there and do what’s right. Follow what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. Go vote if you want to see a change”).
Viewers of the documentary will notice custom anime panels spliced in with the film’s footage. This was something else that Pete, a known fan of the genre, felt passionately about. “I really love the storytelling in anime,” she says. “I really like how you get to see a character go from his or her lowest self to being his or her most badass self. In my documentary, I wanted my fans to feel like they went on that kind of same journey with me. Like you get to see me at my lowest. You get to see me try, get knocked down a few times, but ultimately never give up.”
Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words is available to stream on Prime Video from October 31, 2024.
