Who Is Lil Tay? Why Did She Go Viral And How Did She Die? The Nine-Year-Old Rapper Explained

Every internet rap veteran remembers Lil Tay. The then nine-year-old rapper was just a girl, "flexing" on her "haters" while growing an Instagram clout empire. This was all back in 2018, and sadly, Lil Tay reportedly passed away only a few years later in 2023.

The story of Lil Tay's rise to internet fame is an interesting one. She amassed a slew of followers, over 3 million, in just a few short months. Among her Soundcloud rap contemporaries, she was no doubt the youngest and one of the flashiest, leading to her rapid viral fame.

Who was Lil Tay? She truly captivated the world, and if the rumors of her death are true, she will be missed. Let's explain.

Who Was Lil Tay?

Lil Tay's real name was Claire Hope and she was from Atlanta, Georgia. Later, she moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, which is where she started her viral rise to Instagram fame. Many of her original videos on Instagram have since been deleted, but they've luckily been reuploaded to YouTube and elsewhere.

In her early videos from 2017, she used a lot of AAVE lingo and slang, showing off how much money and expensive things she had while calling everyone else broke. Of course, the contrast between her words and appearance is what spiraled her into memetic eminence.

By 2018, Lil Tay had amassed millions of followers on the platform. This led to her collaborating with highly notable rappers such as Chief Keef. Alongside her, other rappers were coming up whose schtick was also that they were really young but rich, namely, Matt Ox and Lil Pump. Out of all three of them, though, Lil Tay was the youngest by far.

Was Lil Tay's Father Abusive?

At the time of her mainstream peak in 2018, the details of Lil Tay's life were murky. In fact, for a long time, nobody knew her real name. Along with this, nobody knew her real family. Some speculated that they were secretly adminning her page for their own internet clout.

At one point, news outlets like Vice reported that Lil Tay's mom had been identified as Angela Tian, a real estate agent who was fired due to her daughter's online antics.

On one night in July 2018, Lil Tay's Instagram story read two words: "Help me." Fans of hers were concerned. She then posted a video with a caption that alleged her father was abusing her and her mother. It read:

"Let me reveal the truth that millions of people have been asking about for months, this was Lil Tay the last time she was happy, 2 hours before Christopher John Hope, her abusive absentee father ( will go into further details in next posts ) who hasn’t been in her life for years, handed her a court order forcing her to go to his home in Canada in which she was constantly abused by Hope and his wife. He banned her off of social media because he was afraid she would expose the TRUTH to the world, the truth of what he has done and hasn’t been punished for. For the past few months, he has been trying to destroy Tay and her mother’s life for his own financial gain… I am someone who previously worked with Tay and have seen everything unfold since the beginning. I will not stay silent about this any longer, Christopher John Hope is trying to grab at her fame, money and ultimately take Tay away from her mother who has loved and cared for Tay all her life, something Christopher John Hope has never done. #FreeLilTay"

Her father was revealed to be a man named Christopher John Hope. A few days later, Lil Tay's "promoter," a man named Chris Jones, spoke to The Verge saying that her account had been "hacked," essentially dismissing the aforementioned abuse claims.

The subject wasn't really touched on again by many major news outlets, coinciding with Lil Tay falling out of the spotlight. On June 18th, 2018, her Instagram account went dark, following her then-final post about the passing of her friend, rapper XXXTentacion.

Did Lil Tay Die?

As of right now, it's unclear what Lil Tay's cause of death was. The story broke mid-day on Wednesday and the only information that the internet has is the text post which was uploaded to Hope's Instagram.

There is a lot of speculation already surfacing on social media about her untimely passing. She was 14 years old at the time of her alleged death. The situation is apparently "under investigation" in accordance with the saddening Instagram post.

However, outlets like Insider have reported that her father and manager have not confirmed her death when spoken to directly. Additionally, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Vancouver Police Department both stated that they had no reports of her death and were not investigating the case.

For the full history of Lil Tay, be sure to check out our entry on her here for even more information.