They repeat catchphrases — like “youngest flexer of the century” — to give viewers a mnemonic by which to remember them.
They are white but speak in blaccent. By mid-autumn, so many adults had laid claim to Lil Tay’s online presence that the kid herself seemed almost like an afterthought.
)Among other things, the Instagram posts alleged that Tay’s father had filed a court motion in June, calling his daughter back to Vancouver and prompting her sudden disappearance.
In the months since, Tay stayed largely out of the public eye, resurfacing only by way of a rotating roster of alleged spokespeople—Alex Gelbard, Harry Tsang, Diomi Cordero, Chris Jones, and, most recently, Charles Wong—each claiming semi-ownership of the preteen’s problematic brand (Tian denies that any of them had a contract). Since his daughter might ruin her future by acting outrageous on the internet, she’d better at least have some money saved, he figured. It only added to the confusion that her family bounced among managers, taking meetings and discussing deals without signing any contracts.While they were in Vancouver, removed from much of the meme scene, a family friend who describes himself as Lil Tay’s “secretary” got in touch with Chris Jones, a promoter who runs the record label Genre Bend and has signed music deals with tween social-media stars like Rocco Piazza and Lil Terrio. When they arrived, in early April, he told them he wanted a five-year management deal, period. When it was his time to take care of Tay at his home, he wouldn’t feed her or make her proper meals and would mainly leave Tay with Richanee Alcover’s sister Chezca to care for her while he went out with Richanee Alcover and her son, to luxurious vacations and fancy dinners. (Hope denies them. He got a court order requiring his daughter to return to Vancouver and close down the account. He wanted to print merch with Lil Tay’s face in front of an American flag, positioning her as the American Dream in limbo, ripped from her rightful place by a father eager to cash in on her newfound fame.Lil Tay, of course, talked a big game about her hard-earned riches and Atlanta street cred, but in fact she is the daughter of a Vancouver real-estate broker. She thought it was far enough away, in a quiet enough place, that Lil Tay wouldn’t attract attention. Her parents have a difficult history: Numerous times since Claire was born, they’ve had to go to court to hash out their differences, and meanwhile, according to people who dealt with Jason in Hollywood, he was frustrated that, after all of his hard work with his sister, he was being pushed aside.Cordero also looked into homeschooling for Lil Tay and Jason and attempted to limit Lil Tay’s more controversial filming habits.
Even in this scammy milieu, multiple managers claiming responsibility for a single client is unusual. Tsang played a temporary management role but never signed any contracts. Is she still “flexin'"?At the time she was court-ordered to go back to Canada, a spokesperson for Chris, Harry Tsang, told the outlet that the father is not seeking to gain any monetary profit off of his daughter, but instead hoped to achieve three things. The right tags in the right places in the right time slots.The song Lil Tay recorded before connecting with Battle, called “Money Way,” was uploaded to YouTube by her very first contact in the scene, Ousala Aleem, a.k.a. Yet he was the only person with access to the @LilTay account.Six weeks into the family’s stay in L.A., Cordero’s cleanup effort was falling apart.
The then-fifth grader explained that she was currently being homeschooled at the moment because she’s “too famous” for public school. She’s wearing a delicate white lace shirt, hair dyed blonde, standing at least three heads shorter than anyone else in the frame. Lil Tay was the vehicle. “I was so surprised,” Angela says. “He wants me to go to public school. The girls are separated, and as Bhabie escapes up an escalator, Lil Tay stands a floor below, screaming into the void, “Bitch!”Jason, at 16, had created the character and the scripts, but now the family needed someone with experience. Her Instagram account was taken down. “I was bullied, cyberbullied, whatever phrase you want to use, by the millions of people that follow those posts,” Chris says. Then, in October, Tay’s name reappeared when a series of alleged hacks to her Instagram produced a series of violent, racist imagery, personal documents, and details of abuse allegations against her father, Christopher Hope. I think she was given bad advice about many things earlier this year, and she was steered in the wrong direction by various people,” he continued. And he stipulated that a percentage of her earnings be put in a trust for her future, as is required by Canadian and California law. Which is to say that one answer to the question “Who is Lil Tay?” is another question: Who is Jason Tian? Chris watched the videos of her at a concert with Chief Keef; hanging out with adults who appeared to be smoking weed; the Bhad Bhabie fight; the carrot joint. Jason especially: “He’s a fame-obsessed teenager who was uneducated about the entertainment industry.”But this fairy tale doesn’t end with happily ever after and Lil Tay making brand-new music for the movie adaptation. Her father okayed the plan, and in September, Lil Tay recorded behind closed doors, as her parents continued to try to work out something more permanent.Jason had his own past on the internet.