When a statement announcing the sudden death of Lil Tay, a 15-year-old viral rapper who rose to fame as a nine-year-old on Instagram, was posted to her account earlier this week, it led to an outpouring of grief and sorrow.
But that has given way to confusion and relief in equal measure, after TMZ reported that she is now very much alive.
In a statement from Tay’s family, she said: “I want to make it clear that my brother and I are safe and alive, but I’m completely heartbroken, and struggling to even find the right words to say.
“It’s been a very traumatizing 24 hours. All day yesterday, I was bombarded with endless heartbreaking and tearful phone calls from loved ones all while trying to sort out this mess.”
Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
Lil Tay rose to fame as the “World’s Youngest Flexer” who rapped and showed off a lavish lifestyle across social media aged just nine, garnering 3.2m followers on Instagram.
However, the account went dormant in 2018 after a video was posted online in which she appeared to be coached by someone off-camera, whom many suspected was her brother Jason.
Tay was also reportedly caught in the middle of a custody battle between her parents, Angela Tian and Christopher Hope, which had been going on in court since about 2018, around the same time the influencer’s account went dormant.
The account resumed briefly that October with bizarre and concerning activity, including a video of the girl crying that was posted and then taken down.
The posts were later scrubbed, but led to allegations of abuse by her father, amid the custody dispute.
In 2021, activity briefly restarted on the account, with several posts accusing Christopher Hope of physical and mental abuse and of stealing all of Lil Tay’s money. Hope denied the allegations and sent a cease and desist letter to Instagram.
An unsigned statement posted to the account on Wednesday said the star’s death at 15 was “sudden and tragic” and “entirely unexpected”.
It also said her older brother, Jason Tian, who had at one point been in control of her account, had also died, and that both deaths were under investigation.
Both Lil Tay’s father and former manager had refused to confirm or deny her death, with the latter calling for “cautious consideration” in handling the news.
Speaking to Insider, her father, Christopher Hope, declined to comment on the Instagram post and declined to answer whether his daughter was alive.
Her former manager, Harry Tsang, also declined to confirm or deny her death. “Given the complexities of the current circumstances, I am at a point where I cannot definitively confirm or dismiss the legitimacy of the statement issued by the family,” Tsang told Insider on Wednesday.
In a follow-up 24 hours later, Tay was thanking Meta for helping to get her Instagram account back, and had removed the fake death statement.
She said: “My Instagram account was compromised by a 3rd party and used to spread jarring misinformation and rumors regarding me, to the point that even my name was wrong. My legal name is Tay Tian, not 'Claire Hope'.”
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
