After sparking much controversy, T.I. has come forth to address the topic surrounding him. The rapper was recently in hot water after stating on the “Ladies Like Us” podcast with Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham that he accompanies his 18-year old daughter Deyjah to a gynecologist every year to make sure her hymen “is intact.” According to Consequence of Sound, he and his wife Tiny Harris sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith on her Facebook talk series Red Table Talk on Monday. In the interview, he stated he was speaking “from a place of truth, I began to embellish and exaggerate. And I think a lot of people took it extremely literal, because if you put any of my reputation, who I am as a father, who I’ve been, I honestly thought people knew me better.”
He then clarified about him being in the exam room with his daughter, with Mrs. Harris following by saying that the appointments were already made and were not set by T.I. Since the comments, Dejayh had been affected by the statements, asking her father to not further comment on the matter. “I am incredibly apologetic to her for that. To her. To you, sweet baby Deyjah.”
While Smith understood Harris’ intention to protect his daughter, the word “control” came up and led the rapper to retort sating “In the age or time where our women, black women, are the most unprotected, unattended, disregarded women on the planet, I’m being criticized because I’m willing to go above and beyond to protect mine. And I’m talking about all the slimy, grimy, chubby fingered little boys who just want to come defile and destroy the sanctity… Anything that is the most important thing to me in my life, I am going to deal with that with very extreme care. I don’t understand how that is looked at as being so wrong. For their to be malice there must be ill intent. If i’m going to the doctor with you just for the sake of controlling you, then okay. But if I’m going for the purpose of being a protective parent, there’s no such thing as being overprotective. There’s protected, and unprotected.”
Smith’s mother and co-host Adrienne Banfield-Norris flipped the scenario, asking if the conversation would change if his sons had lost their virginity, saying “…the same thing talking about the virginity of my daughter versus the virginity of my son. It’s the same conversation around mom versus dad. Mom can tell daughter not to cut her hair, not to perm her hair, not to color her hair, not to get piercings or whatever — but she can give her body away to anybody she wants to without pops saying anything.”