T.I.’s Daughter Deyjah Opens Up About Her Father Attending Gynecologist Appointments With Her
Back in November 2019, rapper T.I. came under fire for saying he accompanies his daughter, Deyjah Harris, to the gynecologist to “check her hymen.”
“Deylah’s 18, just graduated high school now, and she’s attending her first year of college, figuring it out for herself,” he said on a since-deleted episode of the Ladies Like Us podcast with actor Nazanin Mandi and makeup artist Nadia Moham. “And yes, not only have we had the conversation—we have yearly trips to the gynecologist to check her hymen.
“So it’s this one time we go, I think this might have been after her 16th birthday,” T.I. continued. “This is what we do…. Usually, like the day after the [birthday] party, she’s enjoying her gifts. I put a sticky note on the door: ‘Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30.’”
He went on, “So we’ll go and sit down, and the doctor will come and talk and the doctor’s maintaining a high level of professionalism. He’s like, ‘Well, you know, sir, I have to, in order to share information’—I’m like, ‘Deyjah, they want you to sign this…so we can share information. Is there anything you would not want me to know? See doc? No problem.’”
Obviously, this is beyond invasive, coercive, and inappropriate. The rapper (rightfully) got torn apart on Twitter for days until he went on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk and claimed he had “embellished” and “exaggerated” his story.
After claiming he joined appointments only when Deyjah was younger—which directly contradicted his original statement—he alleged Deyjah was completely fine with his involvement. “She did have a problem with me talking about it, however, and I understand that, and I am incredibly apologetic to her for that,” he said. “She understands my intentions and she knows who I am, who I’ve always been.”
Now Deyjah is telling her side. During the newest episode of T.I. & Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle, the 18-year-old spoke candidly about her father’s behavior in a confessional and to her cousins while on a family vacation.
“Things are completely uncomfortable for me right now,” she said. “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 leave and get away.”
Deyjah added that she heard about T.I.’s interview after being tagged in a post on Twitter. “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.”
She confirmed his story to her cousins on the beach, saying she’d been attending gynecologist appointments with her father since she was 14 or 15 and “couldn’t have said no.” She also points out that T.I. treats her differently than her brothers “when it comes to sex and supervision.”
“I mean, honestly, I’m embarrassed definitely. For sure,” she said to her cousins. “I’m trying to put it in the back of my mind so I’m not really thinking about it. I know it’s not healthy. But I’ve been doing that since I was a child.
“I don't want to say I’m looking at him differently because of it,” she continued. “More so, our relationship, I’m going to look at it differently…. This situation is just a little traumatizing for me.”
Watch Deyjah’s full confessional in the video, above.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
