FEATURE: Tiallondra Kemp, Tia Told Me

Sometimes you gotta put it all on the line in order to prove your point. Tiallondra Kemp realized that after a difficult four-year relationship with the father of her third child, rapper Rick Ross. The two Miami, FL natives met in 2003, share a three-and-a-half-year-old son together, William Roberts III, and have been going through a messy child support battle for over a year-and-a-half.

On January 21, 2009, Tia and Ross both attended Ross’s deposition for the support case and during the deposition Ross had the Infinity truck he bought Tia two years earlier, taken back into his possession, leaving her stranded and without transportation. With Tia left at her wits end after almost two years of frustration over the support case, she decided it was time to aggressively make moves of her own. Through her lawyers, the frustrated mother linked up with 50 Cent’s website thisis50.com and was flown to New York City for an interview on the site with the star rapper himself, who then had budding beef with Ross. A few weeks later, Tia returned to the Big Apple for a second interview with 50, this time on Sirius Radio’s Shade45 and soon the release of her autobiography, Tia’s Diary: Deeper Than Rap, was announced.

On May 20, Tia’s Diary will drop in bookstores everywhere and online. For more information or to pre-order a copy, go to www.deeperthanrapbook.com. Yesterday (April 29) the website premiered the prologue to the book and future excerpts are to come. Tia recently talked to XXLMag.com about her new book, her relationship with Ricky and what’s happened to her since her new celebrity status. Sometimes a woman’s gotta do, what she’s gotta do…-Vanessa Satten

XXLMag.com: When 50 Cent and G-Unit first approached you about working with you on your autobiography, how did you feel? Could you believe it? What did you think?

Tiallondra Kemp: I think it was great. It wasn’t a surprise. I already had it in mind when I spoke with my attorney and she told me that they wanted to do an interview. I said to myself, I’m hoping when I get up there that I can meet 50 and I’ll let him know that I would like to write a book and soon as I told him he made it happen.

XXL: Have you heard from Ross about the book at all? Have you heard from him at all since you flew up to New York for the first interview with 50?

Tia: I haven’t heard anything from him. You know he’s doing interviews saying he anticipated all of this. I spoke with him. He’s doing interviews saying that he spoke with me when I was going to fly up to New York. Ross was telling a whole bunch of lies. I haven’t spoken with him or saw him personally since the day that he stole the truck during the deposition. I’m texting him letting him know that his son wants to talk to him and wants to visit him, he doesn’t respond. I called him, he doesn’t answer. I haven’t heard anything from him or his mother or anyone. And I haven’t even received child support from him in the past two months. He just stopped paying his child support all of a sudden. I think that he’s that angry with me that he went to that extent.

XXL: What do your lawyers say about that?

Tia: Right now she’s filing motions for certain things because it’s a legal process. She just can’t believe it. I just spoke with her the other day to see what was going on, to see if she heard anything from them and she said she spoke with [Ross’s] attorney and his attorney said that he hasn’t spoken with [Ross] in awhile so he’s trying to contact either Ross or his mom to see what’s going on. But we haven’t heard anything from him so right now she’s trying to file a few motions to get a court date really soon for temporary release just because he’s in default or whatever we’re in and try to get this case settled. But I haven’t heard anything from him or saw him at all since he stole the truck. Not a word. He doesn’t want to see his son. He doesn’t want to talk to him. He doesn’t want to see me. He doesn’t want to talk to me, I really don’t care to see him or talk to him but hey, don’t take it out on your child. He has nothing to do with this. And as [Ross’s] saying in his interviews, this is about business, getting money, so hey, that’s all I want to tell him. Didn’t you say it’s about business? I’m trying to get money so what are you upset for? Let me do my thing, you know?

XXL: What were some of the things you learned while writing the book? About yourself or about the process?

Tia: Well, I learned that you go through a lot of things for a reason. Sometimes you go through things in life because it helps you to become a better person so I just feel like I overcame my challenges and that’s why I’m here where I am today. If I hadn’t went through those things that I went through, I wouldn’t be here writing this book.

XXL: Through your depiction of Ross in interviews you have done and in excerpts of you book, you have made Ross seem like a fake character. Would you say that that’s true?

Tia: Yeah, of course. He’s a big character. He’s a false. He’s a fake. You know, he’s just good at writing… it’s only fair that he’s good at what he does. But as far as him living those, no, going through the things that he’s rapping about, it’s not true. Of course he know people in the neighborhood that went through those things and he saw those things and he has friends whose dads was drug dealers and some people that he knew from his area that was into gangs and drugs and things like that. But Ross never did these things. To tell you the truth, he’s rapping somebody else’s life. And actually it’s one of his friends. And I’m hearing that him and this person are not speaking to this day because of that. But of course he’s a big fake, he’s a big lie. You can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth at this point. Nothing.

XXL: With that in mind how do you feel that Ross’s album, Deeper Than Rap, is number one?

Tia: I always wish him success on his album because I would benefit from it as well, you know? I’m receiving child support so I’m hoping that his album does well. But to tell you the truth I haven’t even heard his album. I just heard the singles that they been playing on the radio and that's it. But I haven’t heard it so I can't judge it.

XXL: Since you did the interviews on thisis50.com and on Shade45, with all of this, what has the response been like for you from the public and from the people that you know?

Tia: There are so many people that are behind me, that are happy for me. I have a few people that are saying that they knew it. They knew it was gonna come. They knew my word was gonna be heard sooner or later. They didn’t know how or if it was gonna be with 50 or who but they knew it because a lot of people knew what I was going through with him. And people that don’t know me are still bigging me up because they feel that he’s a fake. I’ve been getting a good response from a lot of people. I haven’t gotten any negative response from anyone, period.

XXL: Has anyone recognized you when you’ve gone out?

Tia: Yeah, I’ve been getting response from people I don’t know. When I go places they’re like, “You’re the girl that’s writing the book. You were on the internet with 50.”

XXL: They really recognize you?

Tia: Yeah, yeah, everywhere I go, they know who I am.

XXL: What do you think your ultimate goal with the book is and did you achieve it? Was it to tell your story, was it for any kind of revenge on Ross? Do you think your goal was to make money?

Tia: Actually, I wouldn’t say it's sort of revenge or whatever. I think my goal was to let my word be heard, you know. I think it was just time, I mean, you learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputation so that’s how I’m trying to destroy him, I’m opening up a hole in his own reputation. You know and right now I feel like he’s my enemy. He doesn’t want to see me prosper. He doesn’t want to see me with anything. You know, so here it is. It’s my time to, to let my words be heard.

XXL: Have you been in the court a lot since you’ve been working on the book? Has anything new happened? Did they try to stop you from doing the book?

Tia: No, but Ross had requested a gag order after he found out that 50 had [a copy of Ross’s] deposition but we went for a hearing for the gag order, they didn’t grant it and then after that we finally got [Ross] to agree to do the DNA test. So we went and did the DNA and that was it, we haven’t been back to court since.

XXL: The DNA was to prove paternity of him being the father?

Tia: Yes that he is the father of William III.

XXL: Which you knew already?

Tia: Yes, of course. He knows as well, that’s why he didn’t want to do it. I think it was just kind of an embarrassment to him, you know, that's why he didn’t…

XXL: So you got it confirmed officially so he had to forget about all that stuff…

Tia: Right.

XXL: Anything else you wanna add?

Tia: I’m just hoping that this will open up eyes to a lot of young women or single women that’s going through a lot of things with their children’s father and sometimes it’s not about who has the more money and who’s seen on TV and who’s the biggest boss and this and that. It’s about who can be the best dad. You know? Because at the end of the day it’s just about who’s the better dad. So that’s the only thing that I’m really stressing right now is some men just need to be better dads to their children regardless of what they go through with the mothers. The child has nothing to do with that. Take care of your kids.