T.I. is revisiting one of his most controversial moments in recent memory. The rapper opened up to People about the backlash from 2019, when he made comments about taking his daughter Deyjah to the gynecologist to verify her virginity. What was meant as a joke landed differently, and the fallout lasted far longer than he expected.
At the time, Deyjah was around 18 years old. The comments sparked immediate criticism for what many saw as a troubling obsession with his daughter’s body and autonomy. T.I. insists he was joking, but the damage was done. What made things worse was the timing of how the story broke publicly.
NOVEMBER 2019
The podcast episode dropped first, which meant the story was already everywhere before his reality show “T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle” aired. When the show hit screens, his family had to relive the entire scandal again in real time, watching millions of people criticize him all over again. T.I. describes the whole experience as something that “sucked.”
The timing created a brutal loop where his family couldn’t escape the coverage. Just when the initial firestorm might have died down, the show replayed it for a fresh audience. It extended the family’s pain and kept the conversation alive longer than necessary.
Still, T.I. says he doesn’t regret filming the reality show. He frames it as a kind of family archive, a way to revisit his kids at different stages of their lives. It’s an interesting perspective given the circumstances, but it speaks to how he’s processing the experience now.
On what he’s learned as a parent, T.I. reflected on the bigger picture. “I learned that you have to operate with more faith than fear,” he told People. “I know it could be very concerning, especially when they start driving and being out there on their own. When that concern arises, you have to have faith that you’ve raised a human being that can navigate themselves through the ups and downs of society and humanity and utilize the principles that you’ve instilled in them.”
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