Lil Tay

About

Lil Tay, also known as Claire Hope, was an Instagram personality known at the time of her fame (2017-2018) to be a 9-year-old internet rapper who often flexed her wealth on others. She became known for her crass, outspoken language as well as her feuds with other internet personalities including RiceGum and Danielle Bregoli. In August 2023, it was reported that Lil Tay had allegedly passed away via an Instagram post shared on her account.

History

Lil Tay, real name Claire Hope, claimed to be from Atlanta, Georgia, and began seeing internet fame in late 2017. On December 17th and 18th, videos featuring Lil Tay (which appearred to have been deleted from her Instagram) were posted to YouTube (shown below, left, right). They featured her bragging about how rich she was while using African American Vernacular English (AAVE), using the n-word and cussing out "bitches."

On December 17th, these videos were brought to the public's attention thanks to a video from RiceGum who posted a video claiming that Lil Tay's videos were made as a way to bully his "sister" (shown below). The video is likely not accurate, as RiceGum has joked about having a sister named "Ling ling" in the past.

On December 28th, Lil Tay responded to the video by cursing out Rice Gum, gaining over 1.4 million views. RiceGum responded on January 10th, in a video that gained over 4.3 million views (shown below, right).

Lil Tay also associated with popular rapper Chief Keef (shown below). She also claimed on her Instagram, which had over 792,000 followers at the time,^[1] that her account was managed by Miranda Cosgrove of iCarly fame. However, that is false.^[2]

Danielle Bregoli/Woah Vicky Feud

Lil Tay gained more public attention after appearing in a video in which Danielle Bregoli, a.k.a. Bhad Babie, and the girl from the Cash Me Ousside meme, had a confrontation with fellow young social media star and controversial rapper Woah Vicky.

Lil Tay responded to Danielle Bregoli in a video posted to Worldstar Hip Hop.^[3]

Mother Identification and Firing

Lil Tay's mother was eventually identified as Angela Tian, a real estate agent in Vancouver, by internet users who Googled the number given for Tay's management.^[4] On May 10th, 2018, Vice^[5] reported that Tian was fired from her job as a real estate agent by Pacific West Realty. Jim Lew, director of business development for Pacific Place Group, stated “When we found out about this activity last week we had to dismiss her." The story was covered by multiple media outlets including Daily Dot^[6] and TMZ.^[7] Another report^[8] stated that Tian was forced to resign after using her boss' car in one of Lil Tay's videos (shown below).

Abuse Allegations Against Father

In June 2018, Lil Tay's Instagram went dark, after deleting every entry previous post. On July 5th, 2018, the words "Help me" were posted on Lil Tay's Instagram stories (shown below, left).^[9]

On October 20th, the Lil Tay Instagram^[10] posted a video of Lil Tay with a caption that alleged that her father had abused 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

The post received more than 2.5 million views in two days.

Over the next several days, the account continued to post allegations against Lil Tay's father, Christopher John Hope, and his wife. These allegations included Hope sleeping with different women with Tay in the same bed, being "naked around Tay" and not paying child support. Additionally, the post said that Tay would be locked in a "dark closet for hours for no reason."

Speaking to The Verge,^[11] Chris Jones "The Promoter," who claims to work with Lil Tay, said, "The account has been hacked. Nor I nor anyone have access to that account at the moment.” Jones declined to comment on the allegations made on Instagram, reiterating that “at the moment, no one has access to the Instagram."

Alleged Death

On August 9th, 2023, Lil Tay's Instagram updated with a statement apparently from her family announcing she and her brother had died. Their causes of death are under investigation.^[2]

Search Interest

External References