Adrienne Banfield-Norris and Jada Pinkett Smith standing behind rapper T.I. and his wife, Tiny
T.I. has walked back controversial comments he made this month about accompanying his 18-year-old daughter to the gynecologist each year to confirm her hymen is “still intact.”
The rapper and his wife, Tameka ‘Tiny’ Harris, joined Monday’s episode of Red Table Talk to, in his words, “clear up any misconceptions that have been surrounding how we interact as parents.”
The Facebook Watch show is known for its unflinching honesty, as host Jada Pinkett Smith often reiterates, and in telling his side of the story, T.I. also exposed his own misconceptions.
“I want to learn from you,” he said to Tiny, Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris, Smith’s mother, who often appears on the show.
“I have three powerful, independent, brilliant women, and I want to know: What is the purpose and place of a father in this society? Because a father like myself, who just wants to be as involved and attentive as possible, we could draw the conclusion of, we just donate sperm and come pay for things and we don’t get to have no say in how things are handled.”
“I don’t think anybody has a problem with you protecting your daughter,” Smith responded. “That’s not the issue. It’s the hymen part.”
What T.I. referred to on the show as “hymengate” stems from a conversation he had on the ‘Ladies Like Us’ podcast with Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham. He told the co-hosts that after his daughter Deyjah turned 16, he began to accompany her to the gynecologist to “check her hymen”, a thin membrane at the opening of the vagina that many falsely believe to be an indicator of a woman’s virginity. His comments drew outrage from the public.
T.I. defended himself by saying he had made the comments in a “very joking manner”, and that he had spoken from a “place of truth” but then “began to embellish and exaggerate, and I think a lot of people kind of took it extremely literal.”
He added that the gynecologist appointments had taken place when Deyjah was 15 and 16, and that her mother, singer Ms. Niko, was present at both.
After Smith asked if he understood the sensitivity of the situation and why so many people were quick to criticize his actions, T.I. responded that he didn’t at the time but now does. He then apologized on air to Deyjah — but not to “any of these weirdos who just tossed around lies for fun” — before asserting that he had just been acting out of concern as a “protective” father.
