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American record producer Metro Boomin arrives at the Variety Hitmakers Brunch held at nya WEST on December 2, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles woman has filed a lawsuit alleging Metro Boomin, a Grammy-nominated producer from Atlanta who has worked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B, raped her in 2016 and left pregnant after the attack.

The producer’s lawyer believes the allegations are false and said the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is “a complete shakedown.”

Vanessa LeMaistre, 38, says in the lawsuit that she befriended Metro Boomin, whose legal name is Leland Wayne, after the death of her 9-month-old son. While visiting him at a recording studio months later, she passed out and woke up on a bed to find Wayne raping her, the lawsuit alleges.

She found out she was pregnant following the attack weeks later, the suit states.

A lawyer for the 31-year-old producer, born in St. Louis, immediately denied the allegations.

“This is an absolute shocker. These are false allegations,” Lawrence Hinkle II said in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Wayne refused to pay them months ago and he refuses to pay them now. Mr. Wayne will defend himself in court. He will file a malicious prosecution claim once he wins.”

Wayne curated the soundtrack for “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 several times and she “believed they bonded through music’s ability to help people in the darkest. moments.”

Around September, she visited him at a recording studio in California, where he was given an alcohol injection and took half a bar of Xanax.

“The next thing Ms. LeMaistre remembers is waking up on a bed in another location where Wayne is raping her and she can’t move or make a sound,” the lawsuit says. “She went in and out of consciousness for an unknown amount of time, but woke up again at one point when Wayne was having oral sex with her.”

At no point was she able to consent, the lawsuit states.

She found out she was pregnant a few weeks later and there was no doubt the baby was Wayne’s, the suit states. She had an abortion shortly after.

The Associated Press does not routinely name people who say they were sexually abused unless they come forward, as LeMaistre did. She is named in the lawsuit and has consented to be publicly identified through her attorneys.

Her lawsuit, which alleges sexual assault and gender-based violence, seeks damages to be determined at trial.