TLC: The Tragic Real-Life Story

At the dawn of the 1990s, in Atlanta, Georgia, arguably the greatest girl group in pop music history was soon to launch into the music stratosphere. According to Black Past, TLC is the best selling American girl group in music history, with over 65 million albums sold. As a trio, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas released four studio albums in a decade and won 56 different awards, including five Grammys.

Combining hip-hop from Left Eye and R&B from Chilli and T-Boz, with lyrics that ranged from spiritual to sexual, the group helped put Atlanta on the musical map and reshaped girl groups for the generations to follow. It is not a coincidence that by the end of the decade, two of the most popular music acts, Outkast from Atlanta and the R&B/hip-hop girl group Destiny's Child, reflected TLC's influence.

For the three women, while their success marked them as music legends, they have faced trials before, during and after their time in the spotlight. Unstable upbringings, relationship issues, band infighting, and the tragic death of one of their own has marked the TLC story as much as their music. Despite this, the surviving members have carried on the group's name and continue to entertain fans. Here is the tragic real-life story of TLC.

While Rozonda Thomas was the last member of the trio to join, she quickly became friends with Tionne Watkins and Lisa Lopes, and their chemistry meshed perfectly to form TLC. However, as the singer told World Star Hip Hop.com, her hopes for stardom became very complicated when she became pregnant. She had been in a relationship with the group's producer, Dallas Austin, and Thomas decided to terminate her pregnancy.

To Vlad TV, Austin recalled the early stages of the romantic relationship with the artist and how it almost ended the group's (and Watkins') career. "We would hide it because Pebbles was so crazy about the girls being groupies and ... 'don't be dating no producers' ... so we first started dating, we kept it away from her and only the girls knew it. It wasn't until she got pregnant the first time that Pebbles found out and then she kicked her out the group."

Working on their debut album and with Perri "Pebbles" Reid actively looking for Thomas' replacement, Austin convinced her to keep the trio the same. While the decision may have saved her music career, it is something that Thomas looks back on with regret to this day.

"I didn't want to do that ... I'm 20, my career hadn't even really started, so how do I do all of that? How could I be a mommy? It messed me up. ... It broke my spirit ... I gave in and broke to what someone else wanted."

In an interview with "Good Morning America" promoting her book, "A Sick Life," Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins remembered a conversation she had when she was just 7 years old. "I was told at 7-years-old I would never live past 30, I would be disabled my whole life and never have kids." T-Boz, and around 100,000 people in the United States, suffers from an incurable blood disorder called sickle cell anemia.

In March 1992, TLC seemed to be on cloud nine. Their debut album, "Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip," was released the month prior to critical and commercial success, and the group was touring to packed venues. "Behind the Music" says while on tour, T-Boz, who had kept her disease private to even her bandmates, suffered a life-threatening sickle cell attack. The episode forced a tour postponement as she rested for two weeks in a Nebraska hospital.

Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes stayed in the hospital to look after T-Boz's progress. Also, as Chilli recalled, the group adjusted their touring schedule. "What we decided is that we're going to work three nights a week, have a few days off, maybe four the next, and just make sure we have those days off so that we can all rest, especially her."

Speaking to People, T-Boz admitted years later, she fell into a coma after breastfeeding her child. She said, "sickle-cell patients need every drop of fluid they can get, and losing that much breast milk almost stopped my heart."

In the early 1990s, Atlanta culture became the center of pop culture, music, and sports, with TLC and the Atlanta Falcons at the forefront. Falcons' wide receiver Andre "Bad Moon" Rison became a sports superstar. Eventually, as told by "Behind the Music," the two worlds collided when Rison and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes began a romantic relationship.

The relationship played out in national headlines for the better part of a decade — for better and for much worse. Abuse allegations and infidelity rumors followed the seemingly in-love couple. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Lopes said her relationship with her father contributed to her attraction to Rison. "I think people naturally gravitate toward things they can relate to, things they've experienced, what's familiar to them."

In June 1994, Lopes set fire to Rison's home following a fight. The Boom Box says that Lopes was angry when Rison returned home after a night of clubbing, and the pair fought. Rison claimed he hit Lopes in self-defense before leaving, at which point Lopes set fire to Rison's shoes. The fire burned out of control and consumed the house. Lopes turned herself in, though she avoided jail time. By June 2001, the pair were discussing marriage, MTV reports. The marriage would never happen.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

In 1999, after the release of their critically and commercially successful third album, "FanMail," which Revolt said cemented their legacies as the girl group of the era, the three members started to take shots at each other.

In an open letter Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes wrote to Entertainment Weekly in November 1999, she challenged her two bandmates to release an album featuring three separate sets of their own music. Each would be a solo album, and the "winner" would receive a $1.5 million prize. In the letter, she referred to Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins as "Player" and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas as "Hater." She also called producer Dallas Austin as "The Manipulator."

"The Challenge" seemed to be a climax to rising tension. During a show the month before the letter, concertgoers noticed Chilli and T-Boz seemed to ignore Left Eye while she mirrored their disinterest. During the song, "What About Your Friends," T-Boz stared down Left Eye while singing the song's lyrics.

In spite of any tension between the women, T-Boz and Chilli responded to the statement with a plea for unity. Left Eye then responded by saying, "I just want credit for my ideas, because I am the creative force behind TLC." According to The Hartford Courant (via the Kitsap Sun), Left Eye's continued distancing from TLC eventually led one of her bandmates to start taking more shots towards her in the media. Chilli called her "the troublemaker" and said they were "tired" of Left Eye's comments and actions.

In spite of the tensions that the group dealt with at the beginning of the 2000s and her debut solo album, "Supernova," not yet released in the U.S., Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes still desired to continue her music career in and outside the group. According to the New York Times, the rapper had traveled to Honduras with her entourage. She was working on a documentary about her "spiritual journey," as her spokesperson explained. On April 25, 2002, Lopes and her entourage were involved in a single car accident, with their car going off-road and flipping several times before coming to a halt.

Lopes suffered fatal injuries from the crash, while the other members of the vehicle, including both her siblings, suffered only minor injuries and were treated at a hospital. She was a month away from turning 31-years-old. According to Biography, her solo album, "Supernova," had yet to be formally released in the U.S., and TLC's fourth album, "3D," was still in production. The documentary she was working on, titled "The Last Days of Left Eye," would not be released until 2007, as told by MTV. The remaining TLC members paid tribute to their late musical sister four months later at the 2002 VMAs.

While not as shocking as the first time she declared bankruptcy in the mid-1990s, money problems followed Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins into the 21st century. In November 2011, Watkins filed for bankruptcy to the tune of $768,643, according to Billboard. In court documents, it was discovered that the singer was receiving only $1,200 royalty payments from TLC and was owed a quarter of a million in child support payments.

Unfortunately, the money struggles would continue with the singer, as the next month, she filed for bankruptcy once again, Attorney Patrick Cordero reports. Under the third bankruptcy plan, Watkins would have to pay $2,880 for 36 months. In February 2012, a judge denied her bankruptcy filing (via WSJ). Trustee Adam M. Goodman said she had not "been pulling her weight in bankruptcy," citing missed meetings, failure to provide any financial plans, and not turning over proof of her monthly mortgage payments. Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, Watkins said this about TLC: "A lot of people have made money off us, and we haven't."