Update: Aug. 10, 1:14pm: TMZ has reported that, in an official statement from her family and from the influencer herself, reports of her death and that of her brother were, in fact, a hoax. The Instagram post claiming her death was the result of a cyberattack, and she even further clarified that Tay Tian is her true legal name, not Claire Hope, as the false post stated.
Update: Aug. 10, 10:24am: According to recent reports from Insider and Daily Mail, no member of Lil Tay’s family nor her manager Harry Tsang has agreed to comment on her alleged death, and Vancouver police have stated that they’ve received no reports of her death, nor do they have any active investigations involving anyone named Claire Hope. It’s entirely possible, then, that her death was a hoax.
The death of a 14-year-old social media influencer. Lil Tay sent shockwaves across the globe primarily because of the past controversies and allegations of abuse surrounding her. Both her and her brother’s death were reportedly confirmed on Aug. 9 in a statement shared by the deceased’s family on Instagram, though some confusion has since sprung forth around the matter.
Lil Tay, whose real name is Clair Hope as we know, acquired fame and public backlash back in 2017 for posting some of the most outrageous videos on Instagram. Even though Tay raked in over a million followers, things didn’t go quite smoothly later. Here’s everything we know.
What are the controversies surrounding Lil Tay?
Tay became an influencer at the tender age of nine and ever since, she received an enormous amount of public disapproval for depicting a lavish lifestyle on social media. Mostly because she was seen posting pictures alongside expensive cars and houses, and on various occasions, hurling racial slurs.
While this was deemed inappropriate by many, the social media star who referred to herself as “the youngest flexer in the country” made many fans along the way. The fame didn’t last long, as Tay discontinued her social media postings in the summer of 2018. In July of the same year, she posted a cry for help message on her Instagram story sparking concerns only for it to get removed a few hours later.
One of the stories mentioned that her father, Chris Hope filed a court motion insisting his daughter return to Vancouver. Four months later, there was a post on her Instagram accusing her father of abuse. The post which was assumed to have been made by an anonymous individual or a hacker also included his contact number.
Hope denied the allegations and later reached out to Insider where he shared his experiences of receiving threatening messages from Tay’s fans who demanded for him to leave her alone. In his defense, Hope justified his actions stating, that his key aim was to protect his daughter Tay from the spotlight:
“It’s not easy to be on the end of extortion and harassment and death threats. But if the people doing those things think it’s going to make me give up my responsibility to make sure Claire is taken care of, they’re just wrong.”
Later, his spokesperson, Harry Tsang told The Daily Beast that it was not his daughter’s money he was after, but her protection and security. And for ensuring this, he wished three things which include restricting Tay from making videos with racial slurs, devoting a substantial proportion of the money earned to a trust fund, as well as, supervising her public image.
The issue got even more complicated when three years later in 2021, Tay’s brother made a plea for help through a GoFundMe page in which he stated with clarity about her sister’s sufferings at the hands of their father who, according to him, physically and emotionally tortured her to acquire control of her fortune.
Nothing was heard after that until the statement on Tuesday of the siblings’ supposed death.