One of hip-hop’s most influential beatmakers stepped out from behind the console this week and into the witness chair. Metro Boomin, the Grammy-winning producer who’s crafted hits for Drake, Future, and 21 Savage, told jurors in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday that he was falsely accused of sexual assault nearly a decade ago and that he’s been waiting years for the chance to defend himself.

“I’ve been thinking about this day for a year,” Metro, born Leland T. Wayne, testified. Asked if he ever raped his accuser, Vanessa LeMaistre, the 32-year-old answered without hesitation: “Absolutely not. No way in the world.” The courtroom was packed with attorneys, press, and a few familiar faces. Among them was fellow Atlanta star Young Thug, who slipped into the gallery at lunch. “I’m just here to support him,” Thug told Rolling Stone. “He’s a longtime friend.”

LeMaistre, who first met Wayne in Las Vegas in 2016, painted a harrowing picture earlier in the day. She testified that she was grieving the loss of her infant son when she visited Wayne at a Los Angeles studio. After taking half of a Xanax, she said he handed her a drink. Soon after, she claimed, she blacked out.

She told jurors she drifted in and out of consciousness in a hotel room where Wayne penetrated her vaginally and then performed oral sex without her consent. Hours later, she said, she was ushered out a side door and sent back to retrieve her car.

“Having lost my son, and the defendant assaulting me, have been the two worst things I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she said, breaking down on the stand. “This stole the past nine years of my life. I haven’t been able to have any healthy relationships.”

But Metro’s lawyers sought to poke holes in her narrative. Attorney Justin H. Sanders confronted LeMaistre with personal journals she turned over during discovery. In a 2017 entry, she appeared to debate whether to “hit back Metro” and mused about whether sex with him “again” would be “beautiful, great, amazing.” She explained it away as “self-soothing,” insisting that any encounter they had was rape.

Defense attorneys also pointed to writings from a 2024 Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, where LeMaistre scribbled plans to “blow the whistle on Metro Boomin,” contact Cassie Ventura’s legal team, and seek between $3.4 and $3.7 million. On the stand, she testified those numbers came to her during the hallucinogenic ritual.

Even rap lyrics entered the fray. When 21 Savage and Offset dropped “Rap Saved Me” in 2017, LeMaistre became convinced the lines “She took a Xanny, then she fainted” were aimed at her. Wayne dismissed the suggestion outright. “None whatsoever,” he said. “I just made the beat.”

The most contentious evidence came from Planned Parenthood. Medical forms from late 2016 listed her most recent unprotected sex on October 13 (before the alleged assault) and noted no reports of coercion. When confronted, LeMaistre admitted she tried in 2025 to amend those records, changing the dates and removing her initial denial. The defense argued this was a calculated attempt to make her story fit. “You knew when you tried to change those records that it was the only way you could make your story stick,” Sanders pressed. She denied that claim.

Metro, calm but visibly frustrated, told jurors he always uses condoms. “Even with my high school sweetheart, we used condoms,” he said. “There was no way this girl I just met in Las Vegas, I would ever have unprotected sex with her.” He added that the accusations cut especially deep because of his personal history. His mother was killed in an act of domestic violence, he explained, and he believes sexual abusers “should be tortured and killed.”

The defense brought in Dr. April Thames, chief psychologist at UCLA, who diagnosed LeMaistre with borderline personality disorder with psychotic features after reviewing records and conducting an interview. Under cross-examination, she conceded that diagnosis had never formally appeared in the plaintiff’s medical history, though she had previously been treated for major depression.

Both sides rested their cases Wednesday. Closing arguments are expected Thursday, with eight jurors left to decide whether Metro Boomin’s reputation will be cleared.