Hacking or orchestrated buzz? Confusion around the false death of Lil Tay, young rapper and influencer

2023-08-11 01:18:52

UPDATE. This article has been edited after the post on Lil Tay’s Instagram account announcing his passing was found to be untrue and has been removed.

The display of wealth in her videos had made her famous across the Atlantic. The false announcement of his death pushed his notoriety far beyond the American continent. The young Canadian influencer Lil Tay, 14, “died” and her brother “also died”, announced a press release posted on her Instagram account on Wednesday.

“We have no words to describe our unbearable loss and our indescribable suffering,” read the influencer’s Instagram account. During this time of immense grief, we ask for privacy as we mourn this crushing loss, while the circumstances of Claire and her brother’s deaths are still under investigation.”

The post was eventually deleted almost 24 hours later. The young influencer would have said Thursday to TMZ that his Instagram account had been hacked. However, the day before, Wednesday, the media Variety claimed to have obtained confirmation of the death of Lil Tay by his own manager…

But the next day, confusion reigned. Contacted by Insider, the teenager’s father, Christopher Hope, refused to confirm or deny the death of his daughter. Just like the influencer’s manager, who refused to confirm the veracity of the content of this disastrous Instagram post. To add to the misunderstanding, there was also no investigation into the possible death of the teenager in Vancouver, where Lil Tay resides.

Finally, on Thursday, TMZ managed to contact the girl, who explained (via a press release, again) that she had been hacked. “I’m not dead,” says the teenager. Without access to her accounts, it is impossible to delete her Instagram post and contact Meta to report the lie to them, according to Lil Tay, who claims to be “heartbroken” after these “traumatic 24 hours” during which she was announced dead.

Battle within the family over Lil Tay’s career?

Real hacking or orchestrated buzz to relaunch a virtual career that seemed to be marking time? What is certain is that many gray areas remain. Why his entourage took more than 24 hours to deny the information? Why neither her father nor her manager seemed to know what had happened to Lil Tay a few hours before the denial of the latter? According to Insider, for years there has been a battle over Lil Tay’s career pitting the rapper’s mother and brother against her father and manager.

The young influencer had become famous in 2018 by posting videos where she displayed her money, all strewn with sometimes rude remarks, which had raised questions from Internet users. She was followed by nearly 220,000 people on YouTube, and the only two videos on her channel totaled 1.6 and 2.6 million views.

This false death (orchestrated or not) will have allowed the young girl to gain tens of thousands of followers in less than 24 hours, since Thursday evening, Lil Tay was followed by 3.5 million people on Instagram.