Her management revealed Claire Hope, better known online as Lil Tay, had passed away in a statement to Variety.
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the devastating news of our beloved Claire’s sudden and tragic passing,” Hope’s family said on Lil Tay’s Instagram page, which has 3.3 million followers. “The unfathomable grief and awful pain are beyond words to describe. We are all in disbelief at this conclusion, which was completely unexpected. The loss of her sibling deepens our pain to an unfathomable degree. Since the circumstances surrounding Claire and her brother’s passing are still being looked into, we humbly ask for privacy as we grieve this overwhelming loss. Claire will always hold a special place in our hearts, and everyone who knew and loved her will feel her loss as an irreplaceable void.
Lil Tay last posted to Instagram in June 2018.
As a 9-year-old social media influencer, Lil Tay became famous on the internet. The self-described “youngest flexer of the century,” she rose to fame for her vulgar Instagram videos that showed off an opulent hip-hop lifestyle. She bragged in one video that she had purchased a $200,000 sports automobile without a driver’s license. She said, “I run L.A.” in another video that was captured from a Beverly Hills vantage point. Lil Tay was linked to well-known rappers like Chief Keef and XXXTentacion, whom she referred to as a “father figure” in an Instagram post from the previous year. After receiving criticism for using the N-word, she later expressed regret to individuals she had “offended.” She starred in “Life With Lil Tay,” a three-episode docuseries about her journey to prominence, in 2018.
Five years ago, Lil Tay vanished from the internet, sparking a custody dispute between her parents and the emergence of doubtful online rumors regarding her family’s position and well-being. Lil Tay’s Instagram was deleted in June 2018, and she posted the phrase “help me” to her story.
A few months later, in an alleged Instagram hack, a series of abuse charges against her father, Christopher Hope, were posted to Lil Tay’s Instagram. According to the allegations, Hope had court-ordered Lil Tay’s return to Canada in order to profit from her earnings. In a 2018 interview with The Daily Beast, Lil Tay’s manager at the time, Harry Tsang, said the charges were manufactured.
Lil Tay told The Daily Beast over the phone, “Right now I’m in a bad situation and I don’t want to talk about these things,” adding that her father had “filed something to the court and the court ordered us to come back here, and he said that I was in danger and stuff.”
Lil Tay told The Daily Beast over the phone, “Right now I’m in a bad situation and I don’t want to talk about these things,” adding that her father had “filed something to the court and the court ordered us to come back here, and he said that I was in danger and stuff.”
