Rapper Rory Ferreira – also known by the stage names R.A.P. Ferreira, Milo and Scallops Hotel – responded to allegations of domestic violence on Saturday. Last week, Chloe "Mekah" Stingley created a crowdfunding campaign seeking help with legal fees and travel costs in her legal battle with Ferreira, which she explained in her post. In a video posted on Instagram, Ferreira denied all of the allegations.
"Some private matters have been made public, and I need to address them," Ferreira began. His video was completely stripped down and serious – he sat in front of a blank wall and read from a script, noting that this statement was approved by his lawyers. He claimed that Stingley had moved to Nashville, Tennessee last April with his assistance, hoping to escape previous abusive relationships. She lived in a rented home with her son from a previous relationship, the daughter she shares with Ferreira, and Ferreira's "other partner and children." He said that he never lived with them in that home.
"Mekah absconded with our daughter last November and cut off all contact with me after I fathered a beautiful child in early November with my other partner," he went on. "To be clear, Mekah and I were never married and never in a one-to-one monogamous relationship." Ferreira then hired lawyers to track down Stingley in order to establish a custody arrangement, only to find that she had filed a report with Tennessee's Department of Children's Services (DCS) accusing him of abuse.
"I didn't know about this report until we had her served," Ferreira said. "DCS and the police investigated these claims, found them to be false, and closed the case." Although the court established a visitation schedule, Ferreira claims that Stingley did not abide by it, continuing: "After not seeing my daughter for a month, I learned through Mekah's attorney notifying mine, that Mekah was claiming my one-year old daughter had been sexually abused. The same day she did this, she was tagged on social media in videos, dancing in a club in Milwaukee. Thousands of miles away from where she was supposed to meet me to exchange our daughter."
Ferreira claims he began pursuing new avenues to get custody of his daughter, and last week they were reunited. He said: "Four days ago, our daughter was removed from Mekah's care by DCS and the sheriff's department, given to me by the state, and I am her custodian. I immediately brought my daughter to her lifelong pediatrician, who examined her, and her professional opinion is that my child is totally fine."
"To be clear, I have never sexually assaulted anyone. I have never assaulted any woman or child," Ferreira said. "There is no evidence showing otherwise. She has refused court orders several times for no reason, she has filed demonstrably false retaliatory claims. I do not wish ill on Mekah, but her actions are the reason the court, the sheriff's department, and DCS removed our child from her care. Our litigation is still pending, and I ask all concerned parties to postpone their judgement until the courts do. Thank you."
Ferreira's story shares the same structure as the one on Stingley's crowdfunding campaign, with enough crossover to show which events the two can agree upon. Stingley is trying to raise a total of $22,000 for legal fees for her case in Nashville and in North Carolina, as well as money to travel back and forth between the two places. She revealed that there is an emergency hearing in Nashville on July 12.
Stingley did not mention Ferreira's other partner or children, but said that she fled Nashville with her children in November "because of fear of bodily harm and death." She also wrote that the daughter she shares with Ferreira is still breastfed, which made it painful to remove her from Stingley's care. She accused Ferreira of "unlawfully imprisoning me, along with verbal, financial and sexual abuse." She also accused Ferreira of physically assaulting her son and sexually assaulting Stingley herself, but did not mention the allegations of sexually abusing their infant daughter.
Stingley has raised over $9,000 at the time of this writing. The commentary on Ferreira's Instagram post is divided and argumentative, with fans unsure of which narrative to believe. Right now, the future of the case is unclear and social media can only speculate.