This girl group – initially named ‘2nd Nature’ – was formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1990, by record producer Ian Burke and teenage singer Crystal Jones, who put out a call for two more girls to join her.
Tionne Watkins and Lisa Lopes were the successful girls, and the group took the name TLC (an initialism for the names Tionne, Lisa, and Crystal).
Jones was then ousted from the group by Watkins and Lopes, who signed production, management, and publishing deals and replaced her with Rozonda Thomas, who took the alias “T-Boz” so the group could maintain TLC as an abbreviation of the girls’ names.
TLC enjoyed success during the 1990s with nine Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including four #1 singles – Creep, Waterfalls, No Scrubs, and Unpretty.
The group released four multi-platinum albums, including Ooooooohhh . . . On the TLC Tip (1992), CrazySexyCool (1994), FanMail (1999) and 3D (2002).
After a fight with her boyfriend, Atlanta Falcons star Andre Rison in June 1994, Lisa Lopes took offence to Rison’s $2 million home and burned it to the ground.
She was arrested and indicted on charges of first-degree arson, but ultimately just sentenced to five years of probation and a $10,000 fine.
Rison eventually reconciled with Lopes, and they continued dating on and off for seven years.
The group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1995 with debts totalling $3.5 million (some of it due to Lopes’s insurance payments arising from the arson incident).
Lisa Lopes died in a car crash on 25 April 2002 while filming a documentary in Honduras. The remaining members of TLC chose to continue as a duo.
In 2017, they released their eponymous fifth album through an online Kickstarter campaign.
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins
Vocals Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes
Vocals Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas
Vocals Crystal Jones
Vocals
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Tionne Watkins and Lisa Lopes were the successful girls, and the group took the name TLC (an initialism for the names Tionne, Lisa, and Crystal).
After a fight with her boyfriend, Atlanta Falcons star Andre Rison in June 1994, Lisa Lopes took offence to Rison’s $2 million home and burned it to the ground.
