am sitting in a ballet studio in a drab, labyrinthine office building in Los Angeles with Lil Tay, talking about what it feels like to die — or, at least, have everyone think you did.
That’s what happened to her on Aug. 9, 2023, when a short chunk of Times New Roman text appeared on the former child influencer’s Instagram account, informing her more than 5 million followers of the “devastating news” of her and her brother Jason’s “sudden and tragic passing.” “We kindly ask for privacy as we grieve this overwhelming loss,” the post reads.
People were shocked, and for good reason. In 2018, a prepubescent Lil Tay had gone massively viral for her videos flaunting designer watches, ranting about “broke-ass bitches,” and making outrageous claims about being a Harvard dropout who’d gotten wealthy “moving bricks” in Atlanta. But as quickly as Lil Tay had gone viral, she disappeared, essentially vanishing from social media in the spring of 2018 due to a bitter court battle between her parents, Angela Tian and Christopher Hope. By the time the post about her death went up, she hadn’t been heard from publicly in years.
The post prompted untrammeled chaos on social media for about 24 hours, with outlets writing obituaries and 2010s influencers penning emoji-laden tributes until Tay issued a statement to TMZ declaring her account had been hacked and she was, in fact, very much alive. This seems, to me at least, like a rather surreal position for a teenager to be put in. But to hear...
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