T.I. and wife Tiny deny sexual abuse allegations, issue statement
Rapper T.I. and his wife Tiny have “emphatically” denied the allegations of sexual abuse and coercion brought against them earlier this week by a former friend, Sabrina Peterson, and have issued a statement.
Peterson – who has previously alleged T.I. once held a gun to her head – shared excerpts from conversations between herself and more than a dozen women in a series of Instagram Stories updated on Thursday (January 28).
Several of these conversations allege that T.I. – real name Clifford Harris – and his wife of ten years, Tameka “Tiny” Cottle, require female visitors to consume illicit drugs before entering their home. These conversations also alleged sexual abuse and coercion.
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In the statement issued by the pair first published on Complex, a spokesperson for the couple said the rapper and his wife have called the claims “egregiously appalling”, adding that the couple have experienced “difficulty” with Peterson for more than ten years.
“The Harrises have had difficulty with this woman for well over a decade. They are taking this matter very seriously.”
The statement read: “Mr. and Mrs. Harris want to be on record and more importantly want the public to know they emphatically deny in the strongest way possible the egregiously appalling allegations being made against them by Sabrina Peterson.”
On January 29, Harris took to Instagram to defend himself, posting a video alongside a caption that reads, “We vehemently deny ALL these disgusting, anonymous allegations.”
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In the video, T.I. stressed that women who have been victims of sexual abuse should be supported and believed. “I wanna be clear about one thing: women who have been victimised deserve to be heard. Women, Black women in particular, should be supported and protected, defended and uplifted,” he said.
He added, “However, evil has no gender. People with evil intentions have no gender. Threats come in all shapes and sizes.”
T.I. also claimed that Peterson has shared fake allegations that were sent anonymously by “blog sites”. “These are not stories of actual events,” he said in the video. “And I have proof of that.”
In an Instagram post, Tiny defended her husband against the aforementioned allegations of Harris holding a gun to Peterson’s head, with a caption that read in part, “Stop Harassing My Family. You strange. Everybody know you been special (face slicing seminar lady). Please Get help. But LEAVE US ALONE!!”
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Peterson has since responded to T.I. and Tiny by claiming she isn’t lying. “Let’s take a lie detector test,” she wrote in a post, and followed up by sharing what purports to be the results of a polygraph examination taken on January 29 that conclude “no significant reactions indicative of deception.”
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