T.I. Finally Addresses ‘Hymen-Gate’ Seven Years Later

Back in 2019, rapper T.I. sat down for a podcast interview and casually dropped a bombshell that would follow him for years: he accompanied his then-18-year-old daughter Deyjah to the gynecologist for “yearly trips to check her hymen” to ensure she was still a virgin. The backlash was immediate and brutal. Fans, activists and medical professionals alike called him out for the misogyny, the control, and the sheer hypocrisy of a man with multiple children outside marriage policing his daughter’s body so publicly. The controversy became known as “hymen-gate,” and T.I. eventually issued an apology.

Fast forward to 2026. T.I. is now 45, retired from music with his final album, Kill the King, and sitting down with People magazine to reflect on fatherhood. His verdict on the whole hymen-gate saga? “That sucked”. That is it. That is the takeaway. Seven years, a daughter’s public humiliation, and a culture that still treats women’s bodies as property, and all he has to offer is that it “sucked” for him.

Here is what People reported:

Looking back on the incident that became known as “hymen-gate,” he says frankly, “that sucked.” T.I. explains, “When the podcast that the interview was on, when it first came out and everything happened, we experienced that as a family in real time, and it just happened to have been recorded,” he says of filming their show T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle.

T.I. continues, “By the time the episode or the season was finished and it came around to being aired, we’d already went through it, and the episode of the TV show was taking us back through it again.”

Still, he doesn’t regret opening up his home life to the world. “Family Hustle was like our photo album,” he says. “I can go back to see Major when he was 2. He’s on his way to college now. Or see ‘Nique before she was able to drive. I can see all of my kids’ lives and rekindle those memories.”

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I am not inclined to engage with his latest remarks. Some conversations are not worth having, and giving this man more attention feels counterproductive.

The real concern is the broader system that continues to platform men like him, entitled, unaccountable, and seemingly untouchable. And the virginity testing? That was never about protection. It was about control. Parenting should be built on trust, not possession. If your child cannot confide in you, that is not their failure; it is yours.