Deyjah Harris is sharing how she feels after her father, T.I.’s, controversial comments about her virginity. In the latest episode of T.I. & Tiny: Friends & Family Hustle, the rapper’s 18-year-old daughter gets candid about how “uncomfortable” she feels being around her dad after he shared personal information about her and her gynecology visits last November.
“Things are completely uncomfortable for me right now,” Deyjah says in a clip from the show, adding that she can’t remove herself from her father since they’re all living together. “I’m scrolling on Twitter and I see I’ve been tagged in a post. The only word I saw was ‘gynecologist.’ I didn’t even need to read the whole title ’cause I just knew. My heart sank,” she explains. “[I’m] very shocked, hurt, angry, embarrassed.”
When asked by her cousins if she’s OK, she says she’s “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,” as she starts to tear up.
While talking to the camera, she explains that she typically “doesn’t handle problematic issues head on.” “I tend to hope the issues just go away. I know it’s not healthy, but I do it because it’s easier,” she adds.
As she explains to her cousins that her dad has gone to the gynecologist with her since she was 14, 15 years old, Deyjah says she feels T.I. treats her differently than his sons when it comes to the subject of sex and supervision.
“My dad even jokes with King about becoming a baby daddy. He would never joke like that with me,” she notes. She also tells her cousins that this does make her look at her father differently. “This situation is just a little traumatizing for me.”
In November, during a since-deleted episode of the podcast Ladies Like Us, the rapper said that he escorts Deyjah on “yearly trips to the gynecologist” in order to “check her hymen” and ensure she’s still a virgin.
After receiving backlash, T.I. appeared on an episode of Red Table Talk, where he apologized to his daughter for the comments and expressed regret over the fact that he upset her. Deyjah appeared to unfollow him on social media after the incident.
“I am incredibly apologetic to her for that,” he said. “She understands my intentions and she knows who I am. She knows who I’ve always been. And I think that that allows a certain level of understanding. The outside, the noise, it’s distracting, it’s confusing, it’s hurtful and embarrassing.”
Following the controversy, ET also spoke with Tameka “Tiny” Harris about her husband’s relationship with Deyjah following the rapper’s controversial comments about parenting the teen. Tiny explained that the father-daughter pair are now doing “really good,” and shared how they worked through the drama.
“That is one of the biggest things our family had to deal with this season. It was a big deal. Their relationship is definitely much better now because Deyjah is a very bright girl. Her dad just wants to love on her, so anytime he’s around her, he just can’t stop loving on her. They’ve been doing really good,” she said. “There’s a lot of conversation. A lot of talking, a lot of back-and-forth trying to figure out where the biggest problem was. And, understanding how she feels, where he was coming from and what he actually meant by whatever he said.”
“There was no malicious ill intent in his reason for speaking on it. So, understanding that and her knowing that [helped] bridge the gap,” she noted.
