On Monday (Nov. 25), Jada Pinkett Smith premiered her latest episode of “Red Table Talk,” featuring her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and T.I. and his wife Tiny Harris. Tip and Tiny came to the show to discuss T.I.’s controversial statements regarding his daughter, Deyjah’s, virginity on the “Ladies Like Us” podcast earlier this month.
“So it’s this one time we go, I think this might have been after her 16th birthday. This is what we do. Right after the birthday we celebrate. Usually like the day after the party she’s enjoying her gifts. I put a sticky note on the door: ‘Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30,” Tip previously stated on the podcast. During the episode, he described accompanying his 18-year-old daughter to the doctor for annual “hymen checks” to ensure that she’s still a virgin.
“So I say, ‘Look doc, she don’t ride no horses, she don’t ride no bike, she don’t play no sports. Just check the hymen please and give me back my results, expeditiously,” he said, adding that as of her 18th birthday, Deyjah’s hymen is still “intact.”
Now, sitting down to speak publicly about the episode that spewed widespread criticism, Tip says he spoke about the situation in a joking manner and embellished certain details.
“I began to, from a place of truth, I began to embellish and exaggerate, and I think a lot of people took it extremely literal,” he said, referring to the viral discussion as “hymen-gate.” “I honestly thought people knew me better than that.”
Tip also took used the “Red Table Talk” chat to deny certain details.
“I never said I was in any exam room. That is an assumption. That is a falsity,” he said. “I never said it was being done present-day. I never said that her mother wasn’t present.”
Smith and Banfield-Norris pointed out the different levels of importance Tip has placed on his daughter’s virginity, as opposed to the virginity of his sons’.
The rap mogul rationalized this by explaining the level of impact that his daughter’s pregnancy would have on his household.
“If my daughter comes home pregnant, the household changes immediately,” he said, claiming that if his son was going to become a father, this would impact the household less.
When Smith asked what Tip would do if he’d found out his daughter was not a virgin, the rapper insisted that “childhood ends” after becoming sexually active and said he would expect Deyjah to act and make according plans as a responsible adult.
He did concede that he apologized to Deyjah, who, he revealed, was upset that her father publicly announced this information.
“I didn’t get it, I was oblivious to it,” he said. “However, I am now sensitive to it, for her.”
The “Red Table Talk” episode ended with a preview for a Part 2 with the Harris’, which will detail the couple’s marriage.
Watch the entire episode below.
Rapper and actor T.I. comes to the Table with his wife Tiny to address the controversy around him taking his daughter to the gynecologist to ensure she’s still a virgin. Part 1 of a special 2-part Red Table Talk.
Posted by Red Table Talk on Sunday, November 24, 2019