Lil Tay

Lil Tay is a 16-year old Internet personality and musician, born as Tay Tian, who first rose to fame when she was 9 years old. Both of her parents, Christopher Hope and Angela Tian faced criticism online when she rose to fame around 2017 to 2018. This is because she amassed a large following by “sharing expletive-laced rants and showing off her lavish lifestyle in a series of videos that have since gone viral” (Campbell). Many of these photos have shown Lil Tay surrounded by luxury vehicles and piles of money while she was wearing designer clothes. In these videos, Lil Tay would brag about being richer than her fans being recorded and posted by her family members. During her growth of followers and newfound fame, there were allegations that she was being exploited by her family, primarily her parents. However, Tay had come out and indicated that these claims were untrue and how no one had forced her to post this content online through an interview she did with her mother on Good Morning America. This caused people to worry for her online, but not really to the point of concern like before as there was no crucial evidence to prove the concerns. 

However between her widespread fame in early 2018 to now, there had been a period where Lil Tay had kind of disappeared from the internet, causing people online to continue to be concerned for her safety. This is especially because it was clear that she was not in control of her social media, therefore possibly not having much say in how she is portrayed online. However, it came out that Tay’s parents have been in a custody battle for years and allegations of her father abusing her. According to Vulture, Lil Tay claimed “that her dad engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with multiple women in front of her when she was growing up” (Zhan). Lil Tay’s mom, Angela Tian, was fighting for primary custody in order to guarantee her daughter’s protection and safety as well as help her daughter work on her music career. Things escalated even further when Lil Tay’s account had posted that she was deceased in August of 2023. People were concerned over whether she was murdered by her parents and what happened to her brother Jason, who was the one who shot the videos that capitulated Tay into fame. The following day, Tay had released a statement that her account was hacked and even condemned the press and media for not checking their facts before posting stories on her alleged death. On Instagram she stated how he was trying to sabotage her on purpose so that he could take the money from her success and keep it for himself. She explained how, “Their plan was to fake my death and then promote the crypto coin… These people are frauds” (Peters). Despite Tay's childhood being controlled, the result of this death hoax and her mother gaining custody means she finally could be safe.