What happened as teen rapper confirms she’s alive after Instagram statement

Teenage rapper Lil Tay has released a statement saying she is alive, in the latest twist to the bizarre story surrounding the social media star.

A statement on Lil Tay’s Instagram account on Wednesday, purportedly from her family, said the 14-year-old and her brother had died.

But in a statement provided by her family to TMZ on Thursday, she explained her account had been hacked, and that she and her brother are both alive and well.

“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,” she said.

“It’s been a very traumatising 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.”

She added: “My Instagram account was compromised by a third party and used to spread jarring misinformation and rumours regarding me, to the point that even my name was wrong. My legal name is Tay Tian, not Claire Hope.”

Lil Tay thanked Meta for helping her get her Instagram account back. The original statement has now been removed from her page.

What happened to Lil Tay?

The statement on Lil Tay’s Instagram on Wednesday, apparently from her family, spoke of her “tragic and sudden” passing.

The situation took a bizarre turn when her father, Christopher Hope, later told news website Insider he could not confirm whether she had actually died.

Lil Tay’s former manager Harry Tsang added to the confusion when he said he was unable to “definitively confirm or dismiss the legitimacy of the statement issued by the family”.

Police in both Canada, where she was born, and Los Angeles, where she was said to be living with her mother, said they had no record of the deaths.

The post purportedly written by her family said the deaths were “under investigation”.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the devastating news of our beloved Claire’s sudden and tragic passing,” the statement added.

“This outcome was entirely unexpected, and has left us all in shock. Her brother’s passing adds an even more unimaginable depth to our grief.”

However, the entire situation is now confirmed to have been a hoax.

Who is Lil Tay?

Lil Tay was only nine when she first appeared in videos branding herself the “youngest flexer of the century”.

In one video, Tay addresses “all you broke-ass haters” as she brags about having just bought a $200,000 car, even though she is too young to drive.

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The videos sparked concerns that she was being pressured into performing by her family. But she dismissed the claims during an interview with Good Morning America in 2018, when she said: “No-one is forcing me to do this.”

“That’s not true that [my mother] wants to make money off of me,” Tay, then about nine years old, said as she appeared on the show alongside her estate agent mother, Angela Tian.

But Tay’s brother Jason, then 16, was the “genius behind the curtain“, according to a profile in The Cut. He was the person who answered messages sent to her Instagram account, would-be managers said.

Jason wrote Lil Tay’s lines and coached her on how to say them, according to several managers who briefly worked with her in LA.

Tay rapidly ascended to viral fame. She was interviewed by YouTube star Jake Paul, FaceTimed with DJ and producer Diplo, and received an interview request from Howard Stern, which the family ignored.

Former manager Diomi Cordero told The Cut the family “weren’t ready for this business” and that Jason was “a fame-obsessed teenager who was uneducated about the entertainment industry”.

He said he had little control, with the family cancelling partnerships at the last minute and taking on big meetings without guidance. More damage was done when early videos leaked of Tay smoking a hookah and using racial slurs.