Lisa Lopes' wild life – 'evil twin', bust-up with ex and horrific death in car crash

TLC were the ultimate R&B hip hop girl group of the 90s, and were famed for their hit songs No Scrubs, Waterfalls and Creep.

The girls were all aged between 19 and 21 when they first met at an audition to form a new girl group in Atlanta.

Formed of Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, Lisa ‘Left Eye; Lopez and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas, the girls combined the first letter of their respective nick names to name their new band TLC. She got her name from an ex-boyfriend, who said her left eye was bigger than her right.

Lisa Lopes, who came from a difficult upbringing, was determined to turn her life around. The extremely talented singer and rapper was known for her fabulous flamboyant sense of style and being the creative force behind the band.

‘Left Eye’ Lopes seemed to have a spine shuddering foresight into the future, perhaps even a third eye or a sixth sense. She predicted her own death, and in her final days on earth made some seriously chilling omissions about her demise.

After the beauties severely untimely death, she was branded someone who “was determined to be something in life,” by Jermaine Dupri, MTV producer in 2002, said “she was a true rock star.”

Lisa was born in Philadelphia, 1971, to her father staff sergeant in the US Army, and seamstress mother. She was of African American, Portuguese and Cape Verdean descent.

Her dad was very strict, and she often spoke about her father’s alcoholism and abuse which drove her parents to divorce when she was just five years old. Speaking on her dad, Lisa said: “My dad was a drill sergeant, for real. He was a very dominant man. When I did bad in school, I got the heavy duty punishment.”

She moved in with her grandmother, who raised her. It was then when Lisa discovered her love for the piano and song writing.

Lisa was such a talented musician, she once admitted that she could: “come home from the movies and remember the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Eye, and sit down and figure it out,” from a very young age.

Determined to make it big, Lisa packed up her few belongings and headed straight to a casting call in Georgia with her small piano and just $750. The 19-year-old aced the audition and hit it off with her band members Tionne and Rozonda, forming their incredible girl band.

In her post-humous documentary, Lisa said: “TLC sold a countless number of records. But record sales to me aren’t what success is, in my eyes.

“The most important thing, to me, is that I take my experiences and knowledge that I have and share it with the world.”

She was entangled in a toxic relationship, NFL player Andre Rison, the pair were often caught in explosive rows. Lisa accused Rison of cheating on her, beating and controlling her, so in a alcohol fuelled frenzy, set his trainers on fire in her bath tub.

While the huge property burnt to the ground, she took a lead pipe and smashed the windows if Rison’s prized Mercedes-Benz and Toyota truck.

Unable to extinguish the flames, the couple’s entire mansion caught on fire, and she was arrested. Lisa was slammed with a $10,000 fine and a five-year probation sentence.

In 1999, TLC were recording their third album. Lopes was very vocal that she had enough of the band and wanted to make a break for it and launch a solo career. Her band members said she “doesn’t respect the group,” and once the Grammy Award album FanMail was released, she went solo.

After her solo album Supernova flopped, she decided to escape to Honduras. She was meant to be out there for around about a month, to document her spiritual journey and charity work. Lisa fell in love with astrology, numerology and Dr Sebi’s teachings, who believed he could cure the incurable.

She headed out to the forest with her sister Reigndrop and R&B band Egypt, who she was mentoring at the time.

Haunting and intimate, in The Last Days of Left Eye, she stripped back the layers of her life in the film that documented her final days, and horrific death in a car wreckage.

She addressed the handheld camera in a vlog style video. It takes a disturbing turn as she reveals the scars of words once etched into her arm: “I LOVE DRE,” and “HATE.”

Nina, was Lisa’s alter ego, the name she called herself when she was battling with alcoholism, saying: “Nina, my evil twin, who came from within who I blame all of my sins.”

In the last weeks, she was plagued by the disturbing feeling she was being watched or followed by a spirit. The unsettling feeling was exacerbated when the car she was a passenger in fatally hit a 10-year-old boy, Bayron Lopez.

In the documentary, heartbroken Lisa cradles the dying boy, and paid for his funeral and medical bills. She was devasted, saying she “would never get over it,” and feeling as though she was meant to die and not little Lopez.

She told the documentary crew the “spirit” haunting her claimed the wrong soul.

Two weeks later, she was killed in a horrific road traffic accident while driving. The rented Mitsubishi SUV swerved away from a truck and an oncoming car. The vehicle rolled several times, hurling Lisa and five others out the vehicle.

Lisa, who was wearing a seatbelt, was the only one to die being killed instantly aged just 30 years old. The whole accident was caught on camera, with the footage surviving to this day. The documentary shows her final moments as the vehicle swerves and gut wrenching screams are heard from the passengers in the back.

She lost her life eight months to the day after fellow singing sensation Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash.

At the time of her death, Lopes was in the process of building two educational centres for Honduran children. One was built on an 80-acre plot of land she called Camp YAC and other was called Creative Castle.

Her casket was engraved with the lyrics of Waterfalls: “dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk