Canadian Lil Tay Says She's Alive In A New Statement & Reports Of Her Death Are A Hoax

Canadian influencer Lil Tay is alive and a message that declared her dead on Instagram was simply a hoax, according to a new statement from the child rapper herself.

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The twist comes roughly 24 hours after a message on her verified Instagram page announced that she and her brother had died under "sudden and tragic" circumstances. Variety also reported that her management had confirmed her death.

Her management also told Variety at the time that she had died.

Now it seems the 14-year-old has simply been hacked, according to a new statement she shared with TMZ. The outlet says it spoke to her family and Vancouver police, but none of them knew anything about her alleged death. Then it got a statement from Lil Tay and just... yikes.

"I want to make it clear that my brother and I are safe and alive, but I’m completely heartbroken, and struggling to even find the right words to say," she told TMZ in her statement. The girl added that her Instagram account was hacked and used to spread false info about her, "to the point that even my name was wrong. My legal name is Tay Tian, not 'Claire Hope.'"

The original Instagram post has since been deleted, although it was up long enough to generate a flood of news reports in Canada and beyond.

“We have no words to express the unbearable loss and indescribable pain,” the since-deleted message reads. “Her passing adds an even more unimaginable depth to our grief.”

The message did not explain how Tay and her brother might have died. “The circumstances surrounding Claire and her brother’s passing are still under investigation,” the message read.

Lil Tay became a viral star in 2018 with a handful of videos in which the she acts and talks like an uber-wealthy rapper. She swears, flashes stacks of cash and brags about all of her super-expensive stuff while ripping her haters.

“This sh*t costs more than your rent,” she says in one video that piled up more than 10 million views on Instagram.

“I’m only 9 years old, I ain’t got no license, but I still drive this sports car b*tch! Your favourite rapper ain’t doin’ it like Lil Tay!” She says in another video with over 14 million views.

Although she bragged about living in the U.S., the girl was later revealed to be from Vancouver. The secret came out after a Vancouver realtor recognized his sports car in one of her videos, and someone else recognized their house for sale in another video. People eventually put the whole thing together and figured out that Tay's mom, who was a realtor, must have been shooting these videos alongside her day job.

Lil Tay has been quiet for several years, although she did end up in the middle of a custody battle between mom Angela Tian and dad Christopher Hope back in 2021.

The U.S. Sun reached out to Hope on Wednesday but he refused to confirm his daughter's death. He made similar comments to Business Insider.

It's unclear who actually told Variety that Lil Tay was dead, but her former manager Harry Tsang told Entertainment Canada that he couldn't confirm the news on Wednesday.

“Given the complexities of the current circumstances, I am at a point where I cannot definitively confirm or dismiss the legitimacy of the statement issued by the family,” Tsang told ET. “This situation calls for cautious consideration and respect for the sensitivities involved."

Lil Tay hasn't posted any new videos on her social media pages at this point.