“What’d you do to me? I’m a sucker for green.”
Those were the words that have been circulating around the internet recently as Lil Tay released her comeback song “Sucker 4 Green” on September 30th 2023. “Sucker 4 Green” reached number one in Youtube’s music category but it would be controversial to say that Lil Tay got off lucky and just so happened to have millions of people viewing her music just because they liked it.
Lil Tay (also known as Claire Hope or Tay Tian) steadily started to rise to fame after a video of her in late 2017 bragging about being the “youngest flexer of the century” and her expensive lifestyle started to go around. At the time, Lil Tay was only around nine years old and it didn’t take long for viewers to assume that someone else may have been pulling the strings behind her fame. It wasn’t every day a nine-year-old girl would swear at full-grown adults, kick expensive cars, and walk around a variety of mansions all claiming them to be hers. It was later revealed that the houses Lil Tay was bragging about were not hers but houses her mother was supposed to be selling for her real estate agencies. Furthermore, a video of Lil Tay’s older brother (Jason Tian) “coaching” her on what to say in front of the camera got leaked onto the internet along with a video of him encouraging Lil Tay to try smoking. With such videos being leaked around, it wasn’t long before Lil Tay disappeared from the internet. The last known fact about her until 2018 was that she was going to go live in the custody of her father who was rumoured to be abusive. Occasionally, Lil Tay would post on her Instagram stories two simple words, “Help me”.
On 10th August 2023, after being abandoned for another five years, her Instagram account suddenly uploaded a post telling her followers that Lil Tay and her brother Jason had passed away. For a full 24 hours, the world lost their minds wondering what on earth had happened to Lil Tay under the custody of her father. She came back onto TMZ explaining that she was very much alive and that her account had gotten hacked. While many were relieved that she was alright and safe, others believed that the post was nothing but a way to draw attention to her name, and it sure worked. Within the 24 hours since she was falsely announced deceased, “Lil Tay death” had reached trending on Google searches and her account followings had a significant increase as well. And a little over a month later, she released her song “Sucker 4 Green”.
Lil Tay has torn the internet apart with her comeback. Was the false death a way to draw attention to her new music? Why was she promoting her brother and mother and talking badly about how her father and his wife treated her? Is her song even good enough to be so popular on social media? Whatever people may think, Lil Tay has made one thing clear with her comeback. She was still the youngest flexer of the century and she still wants the money, money, money!
