The strange death of a 14-year-old ‘influencer’ (and her brother) that no one wants to confirm

The first photo of the Instagram profile of Claire Eileen Qi Hope It is from 2018: nearly 300,000 users “liked” an image in which a young woman is seen with a wad of bills resting on her face. She doesn’t have many photographs, and in most of them she appears next to bills, lots of bills. The latest post from Lil Tay’s account, as Claire is known, is a short statement. “It is with heavy hearts that we announce the devastating news about the tragic and sudden death of our dear Claire“, the statement begins.

“We have no words to express the unbearable loss and the indescribable pain. It has been totally unexpected and has left us in shock“, continues. “The death of his brother adds even more unimaginable depth to our pain. During this time of immense grief, we please ask for privacy so that we can mourn this overwhelming loss, as the circumstances surrounding the death of Claire and her brother are still being investigated. Claire will always be in our hearts, her absence leaves an irreplaceable void that will be felt by all who have known and loved her.”

No one confirms the death of Lil Tay

The supposed death of Lil Tay is, however, a mystery: the magazine ‘People’ contacted the Police Department and the Los Angeles County coroners, and they assure that there is no record of said death. The girl’s father, Christopher Hope, said she hadn’t “no comment” in this regard, in response to the same magazine. The cause of the alleged death has not been disclosed.

The little girl’s manager, Henry Tsang, also refused to confirm the death of both Claire and her brother. “I have been in communication with people who have very close knowledge of the family’s situation,” Tsang told ‘The Daily Beast’. “Given the complexity of the current circumstances, I am at the point where I cannot confirm or deny the legitimacy of the statement issued by the family”, he added. The person who supposedly manages Lil Tay’s networks, Duane Laventure, has not commented on it either, at the express request of his mother.

The legal contact listed when an application to trademark Lil Tay was filed, K. Saphhire, has also refused to speak. The Vancouver Police Department, where Lil Tay was believed to have lived since 2021, also has no record of his death. “For now we have no proof and we are not investigating it,” the person in charge told ‘The Daily Beast’.

‘New York Post’ has also contacted those responsible for the young woman, but they have not received a response. When the magazine called the law firm Lindsay LLP (Vancouver) where the father, Chris Hope, works, someone who claimed to be Hope himself answered to say that I couldn’t confirm anything. “Yes, you’re talking to the right person, but I don’t have any comment at this time. I can not tell you nothing. I’m sorry, I can not“, he assured. “I really can’t comment on anything or help at all. I’m going to hang up.” The ‘NYP’ has not been able to contact Angie, Lil Tay’s mother, either.

Whose statement confirming the death of Lil Tay?

Another of the doubts that hangs over this story is who is behind the statement that talks about the death of the brothers. The statement does not offer any information, neither about how nor when they died, nor about the person who signed it. A former manager of Lil Tay, on condition of anonymity, assured ‘The Sun’ that they were shocked and concerned by the apparent death of the young woman, but that there were some suspicious details in the statement. “One thing that I would question is who published this statement and why it is not signed by anyone in the family,” he told the aforementioned magazine. Although he acknowledges that he has not been in contact with anyone from the ‘influencer’ environment.

“Why is it not signed? Is it Lil Tay’s mother or father? Or an official representative? Why is there no file? For me, this is a very telling sign,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense. Even when there is a death, a group of people come together to issue the statement and you don’t see that in this case,” she adds. “I send my condolences and am shocked by the news, but I’m curious as to who has released the statement.”

‘The Sun’ has also spoken with Henry Tsang, who, in addition to repeating the same words as ‘The Daily Beast’, has indicated that his “commitment” is to offer “reliable” and timely information and has recalled that “at times like these “, the “imperative” is to prioritize “empathy and precision”. “I encourage everyone to trust official and reputable sources for information.. We must be patient while we wait for further developments before drawing any conclusions.”

Who is Lil Taylor?

Lil Tay became known on social media in 2018, when she was just nine years old, sharing videos of herself with lots of money, rapping and bragging about a full throttle lifestyle. Born in Canada, in June 2018 she posted a series of comments on her profile —which have now disappeared— in which she directly denounced her father. In a video of her (June 3), she could be seen crying explaining that she was in the custody of her father, who had forced her to leave social media.

In other postLil Tay claimed that he had planned a trip to Florida to meet rapper XXXTentation, murdered days later, just as ‘Complex’ picked up then. “Since Christopher John Hope did not allow Tay to go to Florida, instead of going to the airport to pick her and her mother up, he decided to go to the motorcycle dealer” in Deerfield Beach, where he was shot and killed by two men with the face covered.

In fact, one of her latest posts (it is not deleted) shows a screenshot of an alleged video call between her and the rapper with a message addressed to XXXTentation: “You really changed me. You were there for me when everyone wanted me to fail; You were there to give me advice. You were there,” he wrote. “As a father figure, not having aFaceTiming me and calling me for hours when I was depressed,” she added. “Three hours ago you announced an event we were going to do, we had everything ready and now, I can’t believe it, the evil in the world. This is not a good goodbye” [en juego de palabras utilizando la palabra adiós en inglés, ‘goodbye’, que literalmente significa ‘buen adiós’].

Another post, also deleted, claimed that Lil Tay’s father was trying to deliver the girl to a foster home, have her mother arrested and completely close her Instagram profile. As he then published ‘The Blast’, Lil Tay’s father denounced that the brother of the minor, Jason Tianhad taken control of Lil Tay’s social networks and that from them he had issued “death threats”, also against his own father.

When she was 9 years old, Lil Tay was interviewed on ABC News’ ‘Good Morning America’. “People think it’s funny, I guess because I’m 9 years old and I’ve already achieved a lot,” she said. “I can do whatever I want. If you don’t believe me, I don’t care,” she would say. Little she had recently moved from Canada to Hollywood with his mother, Angie, who then claimed to feel “proud” of her daughter, whom she defined as a well-educated girl, with good behavior and good grades, who liked to skate, the piano and ballet. And on her social networks, she took away iron: “she only entertains people.”

At that time, the rapper Snoop Dogg even posted a video with the following comment: “I found this video of Lil Tay being coached by her brother on how to be more ignorant. She has to be in school, learning how to be a little girl, not a stupid grown up person“, he stated.

Complaints against Lil Tay’s father

At his moment of stardom on social networks, a series of complaints appeared against Lil Tay’s family for abusing his success and taking financial advantage of it. However, from Lil Tay’s environment, the complaints went directly to her father: in 2021, through the GoFundMe platform, a series of accusations against Lil Tay’s father, presented by the older brother of the ‘influencer’, Jason Tian, ​​who launched a fundraising campaign to “save” his sister. “Tay desperately needs money to support her fight against an abusive father“, he points out, who he blames for the “state of depression” in which he lived, he maintains, the family. He defines it as an “absent father” who, with his previous wife (Hanee Hope), abused Lil “physically and mentally” Tay.

“My sister has been quiet on social media for the past three years because her absent father served my mother with a court order demanding control over Tay’s money, career and custody,” he explains, which is why he had to return to Vancouver. “He has stolen millions of dollars from my sister and has seized all your funds“, denounces, pointing out that he would have used Lil Tay’s money to buy “a mansion, a boat, good cars, spas, trips to Egypt, Dubai, Mexico, the Philippines, Hawaii or the United Kingdom, designer clothes and jewelry and watches ” .

Jason Tian accuses Hope of having maintained a “dysfunctional home”, of bring home “many types of Asian women”, only sexual partners, who came to “undress and sleep in the same bed as Tay”. In his campaign, Lil Tay’s brother denounces that his father gave him he gave his daughter “mouldy food, with worms and parasites” as a school lunch and even sent her to school with “ripped socks”. In an extensive and detailed complaint, Jason Tian denounces Chris Hope’s insults to Tay’s mother, her inappropriate behavior…

Campaign to ‘save’ Lil Tay, promoted by his brother | GoFundMe

Both Lil Tay’s then manager, Tsang, and another anonymous source assured ‘The Daily Beast’ at the time that all these accusations were fabricated, and that they were part of a campaign by the young woman’s representatives to turn the scandal into fame. “Christopher Hope doesn’t want Lil Tay’s money,” Tsang explained to the outlet at the time. “There are only three things he wants to see: no more crazy Tay videos; 25% of the proceeds to a trust fund for Tay and some structure in his public image,” he said. Tsang then confirmed that the Justice had handed over full custody of the girl to her father, and that they had frustrated an attempt to denounce the father for sexual assault. Another alleged representative of Lil Tay, Chris Jones, told ‘The Verge’ that all these smears were lies.

It was around this time that Claire’s mother and brother (Lil Tay) were singled out for to be exploiting the figure of the girl, being accused of forcing the minor to continuously create content to earn money and of advising her to generate controversy and, therefore, attract more attention. In the interview with ‘Good Morning America’, the girl herself assured that “nobody” was forcing her to do anything and denied that her mother wanted to “earn money” with her. “I’m happy with what I do,” he assured, downplaying the future consequences of its content at only nine years old, and about the comments of the ‘trolls’ on the Internet, he stated “not to read them”, to “not waste time”. with people they didn’t like. “All the haters want to get her attention, because she is famous and has a passiona passion and a dream”, added his mother.