April 25, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
T-Boz on Left Eye's Final Days
TLC singer talks to VIBE about her beloved bandmate.
April 25, 2002. It was the night before Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins' birthday, and she had just put her 18-month-old daughter, Chase, in her crib. She was sitting in her rocker watching Judge Mathis when Rozanda "Chilli" Davis called, crying hysterically. "I kept hearing her say, 'Lisa' and then I started having this funny feeling in my chest, tears started coming down my face, and my daughter just woke up, out the blue, screaming, like she felt my pain," T-Boz recalls. Their TLC bandmate had pulled plenty of pranks before, but T-Boz knew instinctively that Left Eye was gone for good this time. Before the tragic car accident, Lisa had been traveling frequently to a spiritual retreat, USHA Healing Center, in Honduras. She spent the last month of her life documenting her days in the Honduran jungle, filming right up until her final moment. Academy Award-nominee Lauren Lazin (Tupac: Resurrection) brings this intimate footage to life in The Last Days Of Left Eye, premiering on VH1 May 19. After viewing the documentary, T-Boz shared her thoughts on the film and her friend:
"I was depressed for two years after Lisa died. Everywhere I went, I had to hear about it, people snickering and talking in the movies and McDonald's. So I just decided to stay in the house.
"I loved Lisa all day long, and I just expected her to be her. Lisa didn't have a problem embracing the word 'crazy.' When we did the Fanmail tour, her rap was, "My claim to fame: Crazy. Left Eye, baby, known as Crazy." So, she put it out there like "Shit, y'all gon' call me crazy, then okay." If she was okay with it, what can we all say?
"Everybody kept calling her the fire starter, trouble maker, she's crazy, she burnt down her boyfriend's house, but no one ever explained that his friends threw rocks through her car. He should have never beat on her. And if the man whose house she burnt down took her back, then what the hell are we sitting here talking about?
"The ending of the movie is what messed with me the most. People told me before I watched it, so I knew what was coming. You just don't like to see nobody you love at the end, when you know what happens. You know how they say when somebody cheats, its' different when you hear, but when you see it, it's a whole different feeling. But I couldn't help but find out because obviously I could see when she was in the casket that her neck was broken.
"Everybody has a different way of finding peace. I'm just happy that Lisa finally gets to tell her story. In the film, Lisa said she has always wanted to grow up and be in the jungle butt-naked and friends with animals. That line had me cracking up. It takes people some time to find what makes them happy. She was on a path there and got cut off in the middle of it."
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http://www.vibe.com/news/news_headlines/2007/04/last_days_left_eye/
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