During an Oct. 7 appearance on Funny Marco’s Open Thoughts, King Harris, the 19-year-old son of T.I. and Tameka “Tiny” Cottle-Harris, claimed that he wasn’t living with his celebrity parents when filming the family’s popular reality TV show in the late 2000s.
King and his six siblings grew up in front of the camera on the VH1 reality TV series T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle between 2011 and 2017.
“It’s a lot about that TV show, man, that got people confused,” the sometimes-troubled teen told Marco when asked to clear up any misconceptions the public may have about his life growing up on TV.
“Because I lived with my grandma. You know, we’ll go to the house on, like, a weekend. They’ll say, ‘Hey, we shooting today. We need y’all at the house.’ They come get me from my grandma’s house, and right after we done, when the cameras go off, I’m right back to my grandma’s house.”
On the hit series, which ran for six seasons, fans were given an “honest” look at the ups and downs of the Harris Family and the challenges that T.I. and Tiny faced raising their children in the spotlight.
King didn’t divulge details about why he lived with his grandmother at the time, but the tidbit took some fans on X (formerly Twitter) by surprise.
A few social media users pondered whether the 19-year-old teen’s naughty behavior in the past was a byproduct of growing up with his grandma and not in the house with his successful parents.
In September 2022, King raised eyebrows online after he was reportedly arrested for unknown charges. The youngster went viral in March 2022 after he filmed himself breaking fly to a Waffle House employee for messing up his order.
“Seeing that clip of King Harris breaks my heart,” one user penned. “My mom and grandma never understood why I didn’t feel the love they have for their own awful absent fathers. They were in the home, and mine was not. He wasn’t there ever, not for the good, not for the bad.”
Another user chimed in, “This is why #KingHarris doesn’t respect his parents. Kids, when they aren’t raised by their parents, feel like the parents can’t tell me shit cause when I needed you, you were not there. And yes, the money and life he was afforded to live did not make up for the time they were not there. Kids will respect the constant parental figure– not the ones that are in and out.”
Diehard Family Hustle fans argued that the information wasn’t new. Stans of the family reality TV show said T.I. and Tiny alluded to King living with his granny throughout multiple seasons.
During his chat on Open Thoughts, King showed a softer side of himself— far removed from his bad-boy persona.
When Funny Marco asked the aspiring rapper what projects he had coming down the pipeline, King said he was gearing up for an extensive tour and “staying out of the way.” When he isn’t busy in the studio, the teenager shared that he loves to go “fishing” and hit the club occasionally.
He also cleared up controversy surrounding his Waffle House tirade.
“They violated me, man,” King told Funny Marco.
“See, when they made my sandwich, as you can hear in the video, I asked for no pickles…They threw a pickle on top of my sandwich like not in the sandwich. It was on top. And then it looked like they poured water on the sandwich and massaged it,” he continued. “So, when I opened it, I said, ‘Ay, whoa! Y’all got to redo this.’ I give them the food– they threw it on the ground.”
King shared his secret weapon for “roasting” haters online when asked how he deals with internet trolls.
“My thing is, if you don’t got no haters, you ain’t popping. And I can respond to a troll and not feel no type of way and be funny about it,” he expounded. “At a point, I just went through my comments on Instagram. Everybody that said something hating, I send them a voice memo.”
After King’s Open Thoughts appearance went viral, a few viewers said they were happy to see Marco “humanize” the teenager.
“He shined a light on his personality and character and didn’t try to embarrass him for views. Respect,” one viewer penned on YouTube.
Another fan commented, “OK, so clearly you see how social media will assassinate someone’s character. He’s a young man still learning himself, and we all make mistakes. He’s very funny and mature.”
Indeed!
Check out the full interview above. Thoughts?
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