T.I. was arrested for public intoxication outside his wife's gated mansion in Henry County, Georgia early Wednesday. Henry County police told Atlanta’s WSB-TV Channel 2 News that the rapper was arrested around 4 a.m. and later released on bond.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, Jr., was returning to his wife Tameka Harris's gated subdivision when he encountered a security guard sleeping at the gate.
The rapper said he didn't have a key and the guard refused to let him in. During the altercation, T.I. asked the guard, “Don’t you know who I am?"
T.I. said Tameka called the guardhouse and ordered the guard to let the rapper through. That's when the argument escalated and the police were called. T.I. was taken into custody.
"Tip was in contact with Tiny by phone and Tiny confirmed that Tip should be let in immediately," T.I.'s lawyer Steve Sadow said. "The guard continued to refuse entry without justification. Words were exchanged and apparently the guard and/or a supervisor called the police. When the police arrived, they were not interested in hearing Tip's side of the story and wrongfully chose to end the situation by arresting Tip."
Tameka, 42, never went out to the guard shack during the incident.
The rapper told The Blast about the encounter, claiming the charges were racially motivated because the officers who arrested him are “white cops in a very white area.”
Tameka moved out of T.I.'s Lake Spivey mansion in Jonesboro after years of abuse and rampant rumors of him cheating on her.
She moved into the secure, gated Eagles Landing Country Club a few miles away from T.I.'s home. She declined to give her husband the gate code or a key to her mansion, which is situated on a golf course near comedian Chris Tucker's palatial home.
Tameka then filed for divorce from T.I., but the divorce action was part of the storyline for the couple's now canceled reality TV show, T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle.
T.I. and Tiny are currently in talks with VH1 to bring the show back.
Shadow says he plans to take legal action against Tameka's homeowner's association over the incident.
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