Milagro Gramz just took another legal hit in her court battle with Megan Thee Stallion, and this time, the judge made it clear that the bill is not being put on pause.
According to court docs, U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga denied Milagro Gramz’s request to delay enforcement of a $75,000 judgment while she appeals the case. Gramz, whose real name is Milagro Elizabeth Cooper, had argued that paying the judgment now, or posting the full amount as a bond during the appeal, would hurt her financially.
New this morning:
Judge Altonaga in Miami has rejected Milagro’s request to stay the $75,000 judgment in Megan Thee Stallion’s defamation lawsuit until after she appeals. pic.twitter.com/iEwtpxMOtU
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) June 29, 2026
“I do not possess substantial liquid assets and do not have the financial resources necessary to immediately satisfy the judgment,” Cooper wrote in court filings, adding that she is self-employed and that her income “fluctuate[s] from month to month.”
But the court was not convinced. Judge Altonaga said “the Court has no reliable basis to evaluate Defendant’s finances,” and found no evidence that any creditors Cooper owes “would be placed in undue jeopardy” if she were forced to pay the judgment now.
Cooper also argued that her appeal raised “serious legal questions,” but the judge said she “fails to show any likelihood of success.”
“She merely argues that her appeal concerns ‘significant issues . . . regarding post-trial rulings, the reinstatement of the defamation verdict, and other issues,’ without explaining why those matters are likely to resolve in her favor,” the judge wrote. “Even if the Court considered those arguments, Defendant offers merely generalized disagreement with the jury’s verdict and the Court’s post-trial rulings, which is not a showing that she is likely to succeed on appeal.”
In plain terms, this means Milagro’s appeal can continue, but the money issue is no longer on ice. Under federal civil procedure rules, a party can sometimes pause enforcement of a judgment during an appeal by posting a bond or other approved security, but the court has to approve it. In this case, Judge Altonaga said no. That leaves Megan free to pursue collection unless a higher court steps in.
The ruling is the latest chapter in a messy legal fight that started after Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, sued Cooper in 2024 in the Southern District of Florida. The lawsuit accused Cooper of spreading false claims about Megan, allegedly acting as a mouthpiece for Tory Lanez, and encouraging followers to view a sexually explicit deepfake video falsely depicting the rapper. Megan’s complaint accused Cooper of “[performing] Mr. Peterson’s public bidding to denigrate, belittle, insult, and spread false statements” about her.
The case is tied to the fallout from the 2020 shooting involving Tory Lanez, born Daystar Peterson. Lanez was convicted in 2022 of three felony charges in connection with shooting Megan and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August 2023. AP also reported in 2024 that Megan sought a restraining order against Lanez, claiming he continued to harass her through third parties while incarcerated.
Cooper’s legal team had asked that the judgment be paused while she takes the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In that request, she described herself as a “self-employed media commentator, researcher and content creator,” and said she did not have the “financial resources necessary to immediately satisfy the judgment or post a full supersedeas bond.”
Megan’s attorneys pushed back hard, asking that Cooper’s motion “be denied in its entirety.” They described Cooper as someone “who showed no hesitation when she broadcast that Plaintiff was a liar, directed her audience to a deep-fake pornographic video of Plaintiff, and threatened to run Plaintiff over with a car, now pleads for the Court’s solicitude so that she may avoid the consequences of a jury’s verdict and this Court’s judgment.”
The judgment amount has been part of a complicated post-trial fight. Megan won a civil case against Cooper in late 2025, with earlier rulings and post-trial decisions shifting how the damages and claims were handled. Now, with the $75,000 judgment back in focus and the delay request denied, the message from the court is pretty clear: an appeal does not automatically erase the consequences.
For Megan, this is another courtroom win in a years-long battle over misinformation, deepfakes, and online harassment. For Milagro, it means the legal fight is not just about content anymore; it is about real money, real consequences, and whether her appeal can do what her latest request could not.
