The remaining members of TLC know what it’s like to be the wild child, bad girls of music. That’s why it came as such a surprise to fans last week when it appeared that the group was slamming Rihanna for wearing a sheer crystal gown at the CFDA Awards. As expected, both Rihanna and her fans fired back at TLC with several vicious tweets and memes. Now, TLC wants to set the record straight and is claiming their words were taken out of context.
In the original interview with Channel 7’s “Sunrise” in Sydney, Australia, TLC reportedly had this to say about Rihanna and her nudity.
“Every time I see you you don’t have to be naked,” T-Boz said.
“It’s hard for us to say anything because any time we do, they say, ‘Oh TLC must be jealous,’ but I call a spade a spade,” T-Boz added.
“We became the biggest girl selling group of all time with our clothes on, and that says a lot,” Chilli chimed in.
However, in a new interview with Yahoo Australia, TLC says they never even knew about Rihanna’s sheer dress and they say “Sunrise” took their words out of context to stir up controversy with Rihanna.
“Someone asked a question, ‘Have I seen’ or ‘Have we seen Rihanna’s outfit’ and I said ‘no,’” T-Boz said. “We’re over here touring and I didn’t know there was an award show and I had no clue what she wore.”
“We never mentioned any artists’ names,” Chili said, with T-Boz adding, “The unfortunate part is we were giving a positive message to little girls. We were saying that it’s cool if you don’t wanna wear clothes. You can do what you want, we don’t care. We were talking to the little girls who wanna be on television, or be singers — even like reality shows — that you don’t have to feel forced. “
“They even took my comment, ‘a spade is a spade’ out of context spliced and cut it up and manipulated it to get a good story,” T-Boz said. “I was talking about television shows and then you heard me say something like ‘every time we see YOU, you’re naked’ and then they put her picture up. Come on man, how can I talk about something I didn’t even see or say about? I’m over here working. Check my resumé, boo.”
“What is not cool is that if we have a problem with an artist or if they have a problem with us come to us directly. Talk to us. Don’t start a Twitter war. That’s silly,” Chilli said.
TLC also addresses the photo Rihanna posted of them posing topless for a Vibe magazine spread, and TLC explains that the topless photo wasn’t to sell sex; it was to promote cancer awareness.
“The ONE photo in our 22 years of our career and it was for breast cancer awareness…that’s why we did it,” T-Boz said.
T-Boz finished the interview by plainly stating, once again, that the group did not diss Rihanna.
“Can I just lastly say this whole conversation never had nothing to do with her anyway? It was never about her at all whatsoever,” she said.
Hopefully, TLC and Rihanna can now have a private conversation to squash their beef, although we’re not sure if Rihanna is in a talking mood with them. – nicholas robinson
