Chingy was a highly popular rapper in the 2000s, with his hit track "Right Thurr" becoming a roaring 2003 anthem. But Chingy's career was negatively impacted by false gossip. In 2010, transgender model Sidney Starr purported that she and the rapper were in a sexual relationship, claims that Chingy denied.

Two years later, Starr confessed that she'd made the whole story up. "I just want everyone to know the things I said about Chingy weren't true," Starr told WorldstarHiphop (via The St. Louis American). "I made a mistake. Being [transgender] is hard and I thought what I was doing gave me a little notoriety ... It was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life." She also apologized profusely to the rapper. The gossip resulted in Chingy losing a record deal, as he revealed to "VladTV." "It goes to show you that that person, who nobody knew, had that much power to come out and say one negative thing about me and a whole mass of people just instantly took to it," he said.

Though Starr shouldn't have lied, the damage to the rapper's career is reflective of the rampant transphobia of the era; Starr is, after all, not the first woman to have lied about having sex with a celebrity, but the fallout was unusually severe. Despite the brief negative press, Chingy has continuously made music over the past decade. In 2022, he released his track "Can't Blame Me," which, incidentally, addresses false gossip.

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