TLC Talks about Left Eye,New Biopic & 20 Anniversary Tour

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TLC’s T-Boz and Chilli Speak On Left Eye’s Legacy, New Biopic & A 20th Anniversary Tour

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since the passing of TLC member Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes who lost her life during a tragic car crash in Honduras. The surviving members of the group, Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas, who are also celebrating the group’s 20th anniversary this year, recently sat down with Essence.com and shared memories of ‘Left Eye’ as well as revealed details about their upcoming VH1 Biopic and 20th Anniversary tour.

Sidenote: TMZ reports that T-Boz and Chilli plan to use a Left Eye Hologram during the tour which will stop in at least five cities this year.
Read a few excerpts below:

T-BOZ: She died a day before my birthday. I remember everything. I was with security in my Porsche and I said to them, ‘I feel like I’m going to get in a wreck and I want to go home.’ The driver said: ‘Well that’s on the other side of town.’ I didn’t care; I wanted to go home. I just felt something was going to happen to me, but it wasn’t me it was Lisa. I was sitting in a rocking chair in my daughter’s room after putting her down when I got a call from Chilli. She was screaming. I had just gotten out the hospital from fighting sickle cell so I had to be careful about getting upset. Everybody was trying to keep me calm.

I remember staying up all night and Patti Labelle and Missy Elliot calling me. Whitney Houston was at Lisa’s Funeral. She sat behind me and rubbed my shoulders for two hours, while telling me ‘it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be alright.’ Right before that, I remember Lisa played a trick where she went missing and nobody knew where she was. This was the one time I wish she was joking and doing one of her stunts, but she wasn’t. 
On what they remembered about the day 'Left Eye' passed away

T-BOZ: That’s the part that sucked. The fire could’ve even been stopped if they stopped acting like little girls and put the fire out. That really could’ve been settled differently. I just really wish people would’ve known her for the sweet passionate person she really was. She was very creative too, I remember I was in the hospital for four months and she sent me a clock that she made and the clock read: “Take all the time you need.” She really put thought into things

CHILLI: People didn’t understand how much of a heart she really had and how passionate and giving she was. She might have come across as someone who wanted to start trouble all the time but that wasn’t it; she just had a lot to say. Sometimes when you speak what’s on your mind—I’m talking everything on your mind, people can get a misconception of you. So because she spoke her mind, all of the time, it caused people to misjudge her. The biggest misconception of Left Eye (the interviewer made reference to people labeling her as the crazy one in the group)

On who they would like to play them in the Biopic;

CHILLI: It’s going to be like a movie of the week on VH1. You know how the Jackson Five have the movie The Jackson Five: An American Dream? It would be like that. I love how they still show the Jackson Five movie now; they will show that for the next 40 years. [Laughs] I’m really excited about it; this was a dream of mine. I knew that we would have a movie about us one day. I want to go for someone unknown to play us. I really would prefer to reach out and find someone that resembles us and who really has the acting chops and who can dance.

T-BOZ: It’s going to have to be new kids, I can’t think of anybody that can play us, it’s not just about looking like me or dressing like me, you have to have the attitude, the dance moves. The writer of the biopic, Kate Lanier, is amazing. She did the movies Set it Off and What’s Love Got to Do with It. Hopefully the movie will be out before the end of the year

CHILLI: From the beginning to the middle and we’re not at the end yet but I loved that we never compromised our values when it came to the subject matter and what we talked about in our songs and how we represented ourselves as women. Starting out as young women, we didn’t care that people thought that we were a fad or if people thought we didn’t dress girly enough, we were just like “whatever.” We were able to accomplish that with three totally different girls, in a group.

When you think of TLC’s legacy, what are you most proud of?

Read the full interview over at Essence.