T.I. is finally addressing the overwhelming backlash to his controversial comments about going to the doctor with his teenage daughter, specifically to check if her hymen was still intact. 

Two weeks ago the rap superstar became embroiled in controversy after speaking with Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham on their Ladies Like Us podcast. He said that for years, he went with his daughter, Deyjah Harris, to her gynecologist appointments to check if her hymen was still intact.

His comment was slammed by women who said it was controlling, creepy, patriarchal and disingenuous. Even Planned Parenthood released a series of tweets addressing T.I.'s comments. 

T.I. went on Jada Pinkett Smith's Facebook show, Red Table Talk, to clear the air and defend his stance. The show began with very critical comments from author Michael Eric Dyson and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, who said T.I.'s statements were part of "a long tradition of checking the purity of women's bodies."

The rapper defended his comments, yet begged to be educated about the topic further by Smith and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones. He called the situation "hymen-gate" and told the women it was being blown out of proportion because he was responding "in a joking manner" to questions about parenting. 

"From a place of truth, I began to exaggerate and embellish. A lot of people took it extremely literal. If you knew my reputation, who I am as a father and who I've been. I thought people knew me better than that," he said.

The Grammy-winning artist claimed he didn't understand the sensitivity around virginity and said his intentions "have been terribly misconstrued and misconceived."

T.I said he was never in the exam room with his daughter during the procedure, for which her mother was also present. He also said he hasn't asked a doctor about his 18-year-old daughter's hymen since she was 16.

He acknowledged that he shouldn't have spoken publicly about his daughter's body and that he owed his daughter an apology for that. He said he was "oblivious" and didn't understand that the comments would be distracting, confusing, hurtful and embarrassing for Deyjah.

However, he didn't back down from his larger and more controversial comments about how fathers deal with their daughters. 

"In order to guide or direct, you must have a certain level of control of anything. I think that in the age or time when our women, Black women, are the most unprotected, unattended, disregarded women on the planet. I'm being criticized because I'm willing to go above and beyond to protect mine," he said.

"I'm talking about all of the little slimy, grimy, chubby-fingered little boys who want to just come and defile and destroy the sanctity that I have. I don't understand. Anything that is the most important thing to me in my life, I am going to deal with that with very extreme care. I don't understand how that is looked at as being so wrong," he added.

He went on to comment further about fathers, feminists and the difference between a woman's virginity and a man's.

"I wanna learn from you. I have three powerful, independent, brilliant women and I want to know what the purpose and place of a father is in this society cause a father like myself, who wants to be as involved and as attentive as possible, could draw the conclusion that we just donate sperm and come pay for things and we don't really have any say so in how things are handled," he said.

Both Smith and Banfield-Jones immediately disputed his thoughts and clarified that it was the focus on his daughter's hymen that made it problematic, not his desire to protect her.

Smith explained that in her relationship with Will Smith, they've had discussions about the need for men to handle certain topics with boys and for women to handle other topics for girls, particularly sexuality. 

"Having been a young girl and raised young women, a woman's journey in regards to her sexuality has to be guided by mothers," she said.

"There are certain things I can't teach my son because I'm not a man. Love your daughter, but let me teach her because there are certain sensitivities that you might not have or understand," Smith added.

The group then debated the difference between protection and control, with T.I. claiming that his intention was never to control her sexuality, only to be present in her life and provide guidance. 

"For there to be malice, there must be ill intent. If I'm going to the doctor with you just for the sake of controlling you, then OK. But if I'm going for the purpose of being a protective parent. There is no such thing as being overprotected. There is protected and unprotected," T.I. said. 

"I am here to protect all of the children from themselves until they make it to a point where they have awareness and sense of self and discernment to be able to make certain decisions on their own that will impact their lives indefinitely. I'm not there to protect necessarily virginity, I just know that it's a big move. Once you make that move there are things that follow. You have to be equipped. I don't know if you're equipped so awareness is my first line of defense," he told the Red Table Talk hosts.

He claimed that social media was exposing kids to new things at an early age now and it was the job of parents to impose "moral standards, principles and greatness" into their children. 

T.I. went on to say that most young boys want to "defile and destroy" and that he told his daughter she should "keep her expectations low" because for boys, sex is only a "physical, animalistic urge." 

Smith asked him why he had such differing views on his daughter's virginity as opposed to his sons, and he said households only change when daughters get pregnant. 

"If my son goes out and gets a girl pregnant, how is the household changed for those nine months? The household does not necessarily change those nine months. Whereas if my daughter comes home, my household is changed immediately, so the stakes are higher," T.I. told a surprised Smith. 

"Your childhood ends when you lose your virginity. That's it. Now you ended your childhood and you begin your adulthood. I can't let you run around trying to enjoy the luxuries of adulthood without any of the responsibility of adulthood. You must heighten the level of responsibility, birth control, financial or just having a plan. You can't just run around not knowing what you wanna do anymore," he said.

While Smith repeatedly called the situation a "misunderstanding," T.I. continued to make eye-opening statements about feminism and said he didn't know what "patriarchal" meant. 

"Have females actually tried to explain this all to men? The feminist sometimes, it can be misconstrued by people who don't understand it, as women wanting men to stop silencing them so that they can silence men," T.I. claimed after explaining what he thought the patriarchy was.

Smith disputed his description of feminists and explained that she and her daughter Willow often have to educate Will about what he can and can't say concerning women's bodies. T.I. said he was also in the process of learning about women and thanked Smith as well as Banfield-Jones for turning his controversial comments into a teachable moment.