Zonnique Pullins is opening up about her family. When 360APROKO’s Deidre Behar spoke to the 24-year-old TV personality via Zoom, Zonnique shared how her family — her mom is Tameka “Tiny” Harris and her stepdad is T.I. — is doing following her stepfather’s controversial comments about her stepsister, Deyjah Harris.
T.I. made the comments in question last year, revealing on the Ladies Like Us podcast that he has “yearly trips to the gynecologist” with his teenage daughter “to check her hymen” in order to make sure she’s still a virgin. The podcast episode has since been deleted and T.I. publicly apologized to Deyjah, who’s said that her dad’s comments made her “completely uncomfortable.”
“That was definitely a big moment for everyone,” Zonnique tells 360APROKO of how T.I.’s remarks changed their family. “He’s definitely just been learning with the girls on how to handle certain things and how to go about certain things when it comes to us. I feel like it’s a lot of stuff he didn’t realize when it comes to a young girl’s feelings. So I feel like now he’s a little bit more careful. He just goes about everything a little bit differently now, definitely… He’s more sensitive with everything.”
As for how T.I. and Deyjah’s relationship is today, Zonnique says they’ve learned about “each other a lot more since then.”
“Their relationship has gotten better and they’ve both grown… He’s not overbearing in certain situations… He’s changed when it comes to Deyjah,” she says. “Their relationship is in a really good place, actually. It took a minute for them to get to this place, but I feel like they’re just doing really good.”
Now Zonnique’s family is focusing on her pregnancy, which she announced in August. Though she’s excited about welcoming a baby girl with her boyfriend, Bandhunta Izzy, having a child wasn’t something that she planned.
“At first I was definitely sad… but I feel like it was definitely God ‘s plan for me,” she says. “That made me feel like, let me just stop trying to control my whole life and make everything go the way that I plan for it to be and just let God do whatever He wants to do with me. That’s why now I can definitely say I’m happy. I’m in a good space about it.”
While Zonnique wasn’t totally onboard with the pregnancy at first, Bandhunta was excited from the beginning.
“He’s been excited since day one so everything has been going really good with us,” she says, before revealing if marriage is in their future.
“We haven’t had too many conversations about it recently. I feel like I can definitely marry him, but I don’t want to get married anytime soon,” she says. “… Right now I just want to be in a relationship… I think he could definitely be the one, but we shall see.”
When it comes to her pregnancy itself, Zonnique says it’s been “easy going the whole entire time,” adding that she’s been without morning sickness and cravings.
“It’s been a really cool experience being pregnant… I just started feeling her kicks a month or two ago,” she shares. “It’s just such a great experience.”
After telling her mom about her pregnancy, Zonnique decided to break the news to T.I. on the very first episode of her Fox Soul talk show, The Mix, which she was “really nervous” about. T.I. reacted to the news with shock and by joking that he needed a drink and a joint.
“I definitely expected his reaction to be a lot like how it was… I didn’t expect him to be extremely happy and like, ‘Oh my God! Congratulations!’ because I know how he is,” Zonnique says. “He’s a Libra. He doesn’t really play… I was pretty happy to share that moment with the world; me telling him and telling the world all at the same time was pretty hilarious to me.”
“… I think [Tiny and T.I.] are definitely getting into the whole thought of it,” she adds. “My mom has definitely been settling into becoming a grandma for a while now… My pops, I feel like he’s just now kind of settling into it the last couple months. When he sees me he’s like, ‘Oh, let’s see, you’re getting bigger.'”
Sharing her pregnancy news on The Mix is indicative of the type of show Zonnique wants it to be: open, honest and exciting to watch.
“The show is a talk show for the younger generation,” she explains. “It all started with my mom just having this idea… She’s the executive producer and she thought of me being a part of it, just me being her child.”
“… It all just really came together really in a short period of time, to be honest,” Zonnique adds of the show. “Everything just flowed really well with putting this show together.”
