Out in the open. T.I.’s daughter, Deyjah, became emotional as she discussed the state of their relationship after his controversial comments about her virginity.
“Things are completely uncomfortable for me right now,” the 19-year-old said on the Monday, June 15, episode of T.I. & Tiny: Friends & Family Hustle. “We’re all together in this house, so I have to see my dad and be around him. And we’re in a foreign country, so it’s not like I can just leave and get away.”
Deyjah told viewers that she was “scrolling on Twitter” in November 2019 when she found out that the rapper, 39, went on a podcast and revealed he takes her on “yearly trips to the gynecologist to check her hymen” to ensure that she is still a virgin.
“I see that I’ve been tagged in a post. The only word that I saw was ‘gynecologist,’ and I didn’t even need to read the whole title ’cause I just knew,” she said. “My heart sank. Very shocked, hurt, angry, embarrassed.”
The teen talked to her cousins about the situation during the episode, telling them, “I’m trying to push it in the back of my mind so I’m really not thinking about it. I know, it’s not healthy, but I’ve been doing that since [I was] a child.”
Deyjah explained to her relatives that T.I. (real name Clifford Harris Jr.) has been taking her to the gynecologist since she “was 14 or 15,” adding that she “couldn’t have said no” to him.
In a confessional, the college student explained that she feels the Grammy winner treats her “differently” than her brothers, Messiah, 20, Domani, 19, King, 15, and Major, 12. (T.I. also shares daughter Heiress, 4, with wife Tameka “Tiny” Cottle.)
“I just don’t really care to be around him right now,” Deyjah, who unfollowed her father on Instagram after his remarks, admitted to her cousins with tears in her eyes. “I’m not saying he’s a bad parent. … More so, our relationship, I’m going to look at it differently.”
T.I., for his part, insisted on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, in November 2019 that he was talking “in a very joking manner” when he publicly discussed Deyjah’s virginity. He also asserted that he was never “in any exam room” with her, adding that he is “incredibly apologetic to her.”
