In honor of the 10th anniversary of the death of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, surviving TLC members Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins recently sat down with Essence Magazine and paid tribute to their friend, who tragically passed away on April 25th 2002 in a car crash in Honduras.

The ladies of TLC — who are also celebrating their 20th anniversary as a group — also talked about an upcoming VH1 biopic and revealed details about an upcoming tour, and a new album featuring new music set to drop shortly after the release of the movie.

Check out the interview below:

ESSENCE.com: Today marks 10 years since we lost Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes in a tragic car accident. What do you remember about that day?

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 all right.” 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.

ESSENCE.com: People playfully identified her as the crazy one in the group because of the notable fire in 1994, among other things. What’s the biggest misconception about Left Eye?

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, and people can get a misconception of you. So because she spoke her mind, all of the time, it caused people to misjudge her.

ESSENCE.com: A lot of people believe TLC was feuding when Left Eye passed. What was your relationship like at the time?

CHILLI: It was actually very good; we had started working on the last album. We all had solo deals. I was just like, “We have to do another record” — I was willing to put everything on hold. That was the last time we got to spend quality time together before she passed. The relationship was good; she was acting silly again, playing pranks on people. Her death was very devastating for us, but I can look back and say I was happy about what our relationship was like, at that time.

T-BOZ: No matter what, everyone will go through a disagreement — that’s what makes us all different. So it’s unrealistic to tell anybody that we all agreed with everything that everyone did or said. That doesn’t happen in a real relationship. At the time, she just didn’t agree with what the record company was doing with the project, so she felt strong about standing up about it. It had nothing personal to do with the group members. I didn’t have a problem with that.

ESSENCE.com: Tell us about the VH1 biopic. Are you looking to have someone in Hollywood play you guys, or all new unknown actresses?

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: 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.

ESSENCE.com: When you think of TLC’s legacy, what are you most proud of?

T-BOZ: You know how now it’s easy for Black people to make it on pop radio… Back then it was hard. Michael Jackson was probably one of the first Black people to get on MTV and VH1 and then TLC “Waterfalls” was probably the second, it was so hard. I remember getting flowers for making it on MTV and then a special gift for making it on VH1 — that was like a big deal! We had to bust our butts to get on a show. When I say we broke records and I worked for mines, I worked for mine! We had to work for every last single thing.

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.

ESSENCE.com: Are we going to get another TLC album or a 20th anniversary tour?

T-BOZ: Yes, we’re going on tour; we are in negotiations now with LA. Reid, so we’ll see what happens. A lot of cool things are coming up.

CHILLI:Another TLC album? Yes, that’s for sure! We’ll have new music right after the movie drops. We have everybody that was there with us from the beginning on board. We’ll definitely have a tour; I just don’t know what we’ll call it yet.

[Essence.com]

Legendary R&B group TLC reunited during the American Idol finale Wednesday night (May 25). And the remaining group members T-Boz and Chilli put on quite the show as they, along with the female finalists, performed a medley of their timeless hit singles, including “No Scrubs” and “Waterfalls.”

Check out the girls doing their thing for the Idol crowd below:

R&B singer Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins of the platinum selling group TLC turned 40 last Monday (Apr 26) and celebrated her birthday with V-103 Atlanta radio personality Frank Ski at the Havana Club. Her group mate and BFF Chilli came through and partied with her and Frank, who turns 45 this coming Sunday (May 9). Check out 10+ pictures (via the homie FreddyO) of T-Boz, Chilli and Frank Ski partying it up at the Havana Club in Atlanta below…

MORE PICS @ FREDDYO.COM

One of the biggest selling girl groups of all time are back at it again! After the loss of their beloved Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes back in 2002 from a car crash in Honduras, the remaining members of the highly successful trio we know and love as TLC decided to their musical careers a break in 2005.

But Rozanda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins recently picked up their mics and performed a charity event for Justin Timberlake in Las Vegas. And now, the duo is reportedly documenting their comeback to the music scene with a new VH1 reality series. The groups’ longtime manager and friend Bill Diggins will direct the currently untitled television series for TLC, which will air sometime in March of 2010.

TLC’s reunion comes just three years after Watkins underwent major surgery to remove a non-cancerous brain tumor. She suffered a series of speech, sight and balance complications after the operation, not to mention the painful headaches, and has still yet to regain her full health but she says it will take way more than that to stop her!

“To this day, the headaches are unbelievable… But if that’s all? No problemo… I’m doing a solo album, and I want to tour. I have to see if I can do it. I’m still here. It will take way more to stop me.”

TLC’s Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins was recently on The Mo’Nique Show on BET where she revealed that she she and the other members of TLC held Arista and Clive Davis at gun point because of the shady dealing of the music industry. Their reasoning? TLC’s album CrazySexyCool made a whopping $75 million dollars and each member only received $50,000 a piece. Watch the interview below:

Damn! We don’t blame them for getting gangsta on Clive Davis and the other record execs though. Imagine spending months of hard work recording an album and getting only .06% of the profit. That’s not even one percent or even one tenth of a percent! But that’s one thing we’ve always liked about TLC: how they always kept it real. And if that ain’t keeping it real, we don’t know what is!

Could you imagine Kelly and Michelle (or LaToya and LaTavia) pulling out guns on Mathew Knowles???

It looks like Justin Timberlake called in the big guns all in the name of charity. TLC, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and Ciara all performed live in concert in support of Justin’s benefit for Shriners Hospitals for Children at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino Saturday night (Oct 17) in Las Vegas.

Producer/rapper Timbaland and country music sensation Taylor Swift also performed at the second annual “Justin Timberlake and Friends” benefit concert.

Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, a former contestant on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice and the T in girl group TLC, recently sat down with our good friends over at AOL Blackvoices and was very open and kept everything really real. And when we say really real, we really mean really real. Read it again. It makes sense. The Atlanta native talked about an upcoming TLC movie that could possibly be in the making really soon, what she thought about her performance with Alicia Keys at the 2008 BET Awards, and how she feels about today’s girl groups. She even had a few things to say about Beyonce‘s role in Destiny’s Child!

When you hear stories about what’s going on with Destiny’s Child and Kelly Rowland having to fire Matthew Knowles to finally get attention, what are your thoughts?

They get mad when I say this, but I don’t give a damn. It was all about Beyonce anyway. She was my favorite, too, but come on. Her parents are over everything. Who do you think they were going for? It’s always Beyonce.

It was supposed to be exactly the way it is now, Bey is on top. I love Beyonce, and I am a fan of hers. She was my favorite in the group even before they were Destiny’s Child and they were the Baby Dolls. She was so cute and pretty. I like all of them, and I wish Kelly the best. When you’re in a girl group, you have differences, and you have to learn how to respectfully agree to disagree. There are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that people don’t know about. Some girl groups have girls trying to steal other girls’ boyfriends and that’s the ultimate no-no. You have situations like the Kelly thing and Beyonce’s parents. You can say that I’m out for everybody, but if Lisa was to bring somebody in that’s her boyfriend, then I’m gonna feel like you got Lisa’s back more than mine, and that’s gonna be a no-no. I just think that brings a conflict of interest in the beginning. That would have been a hard group for me to be in, because I would have been like your mommy and daddy are running things and they’re gonna have you at heart the most. That’s just how I feel.

I hear you and Chilli have been approached about a TLC movie. Monique Coleman from ‘High School Musical’ says it’s her dream to play Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes in a film.

That’s awesome to hear. I am interested now whereas I wasn’t before. I actually do want to pursue making this movie. We’re talking to companies now so right now it’s just talk. People are actively pursuing it and that’s a great thing.

What actress would you like to play you in the film?

It would have to be a girl who has a lot of cool personality like a prissy tomboy. She has to look good with blond hair, because she must swag out the blond. I love Kyla Pratt. She has a lot of personality and a lot of spunk. I think Meagan Good can do it, too. I like both of them. In ‘ATL,’ Lauren London played me and she did a great job. ‘ATL’ was about Dallas Austin and my experience growing up in the skating rink. The only difference was that we [were not in a relationship]. That was part of the movie. I executive produced it, and it was a part of my life. That was really my story.

What actress should play Chilli? I pick Keshia Knight Pulliam or Tatyana Ali or anyone else who can brush down their baby hair.

Those are two good picks. Keshia still has that valley girl in her and so does Tatyana, so they make great looks, but they have to get rid of the valley girl part, because Rozanda has no valley girl in her at all. You can buy the lace-front weave and anybody can have her hair. All you got to do is call up Tyra Banks and ask her where she gets her wigs from.

Alicia Keys got you and Chilli to reunite and perform on last year’s BET Awards. How did it make you feel that a singer who wasn’t even in a girl group professionally wanted to celebrate TLC, SWV and En Vogue like that?

I love Alicia and that was the only reason I did it. We’ve never said yes to perform with anybody, ever. She is one of those people that you respect and feel honored to be asked and that’s why we said yes. I don’t count the BET Awards as a real TLC performance. That was just a mess altogether. That was a terrible day for me. It wasn’t a regular TLC show anyway. At a real TLC show, we run things and are energetic and dance. That was just a hot mess. I’m very excited to do what we do, and I’ll be back in my element. That sure wasn’t my element. I’m happy to be back, and we’ll be doing it the way that we do it.

There are currently no girl groups in the music business. They all seem to break up. Why do you think it’s like that?

I feel like girls are anal, bitchy and bitter. They’re jealous, envious and compete with each other even though they say they don’t. It always brings issues. They can’t differentiate that this is business, and we don’t have to be best friends. We just have to work together. People have a hard time living with that, because it becomes fake and you have to keep up this whole façade, and you just can’t deal with it and break up. At the end of the day, it’s about making money and T-Bozhaving a career. Nobody said you have to go home and hug every day. Some girls can’t deal with that, and I’ve always had girl problems. Girls and me just don’t mix. They’ve always been jealous, tried to take my boyfriends and lie on me. I get it because I’ve always had that happen to me. That’s why I would never do a girl group again. I’m happy to have been with the two I was with, but I would never bring another girl in and start a new group. You don’t have to worry about that with me.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW!

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A few days ago, we reported that TLC member Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins was losing her home. Well, she sat down with Essence.com and set the record straight in an exclusive interview with the popular magazine.

ESSENCE.COM: Well, there have been reports that a Georgia property of yours is going into foreclosure. Is that true?

T-Boz: No, I’m not homeless. During my last marriage [to Mack 10], I had a bunch of things that were put in my name. If one of those properties is going into foreclosure then I don’t know. Although I’ve been divorced for five years, there are still a lot of things I’m dealing with on getting straight in that regard. All I know is that the house I live in with my daughter is not. When you pull up my name, my real house doesn’t show up because it’s not in my real name, because I enjoy my privacy and I’m not trying to have people be able to find me that easily.

First Damon Dash, then Fantasia, and now T-Boz!

Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is the latest celebrity to lose her home to the government. The former TLC member is said to be losing her 5-bedroom, 10,000 square feet Georgia home after failing to make her monthly mortgage payments. The state plans on putting the $530,000 home on the auction block come January 2009.

Even celebrities tend to live outside of their means, which is way past dumb. When you stop selling albums, or making movies, or doing whatever it is that you do, it’s time to downgrade to something a little more reasonable. If you own 5 cars, sell 3 of them and keep two. If you have a $600,000 house … downgrade to a $200,000 house. It’s not that hard of a concept…