On the eve of their highly anticipated VH1 movie, “Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story,” the surviving members of TLC visited “The Breakfast Club” radio show in New York to reminisce on their careers, discuss their future plans and, most controversially, talk about their tumultuous relationship with former manager and multiplatinum singer Pebbles.
Rozanda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins told the hosts of Power 105.1 how Pebbles allegedly cheated the trio, which also featured the late rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez, out of their fare share of revenues and about not being able to see their original contracts. It is a well-known fact that the bestselling girl group of all time went diamond with Crazy Sexy Cool (selling more than 10 million copies of their iconic album which featured the smash hits “Waterfalls,” “Creep” and “Red Light Special”) yet had to file for bankruptcy.
They also talked about how Pebbles encouraged T-Boz and Left Eye to kick out the girl, Crystal, who started the group in the first place, who was then replaced by Chilli.
“Was (Pebbles) that bad?” asked radio co-host Angela Yee. “Because in that movie, I was like ‘wow.’
“She was, like, the devil,” added DJ Envy
“It’s not exaggerated,” answered T-Boz. “In fact, it has calmed down,” Chilli chimed in.
TLC went on to say that Pebbles, a former star singer who had scored blockbuster hits off her own albums in the mid- and late-1980s — most notably “Girlfriend,” “Mercedes Boy” and “Giving You the Benefit” — emotionally manipulated TLC to keep them “subservient.”
When Yee pointed out that, in the movie, the girls never saw their original contracts; T-Boz explained how Pebbles allegedly kept the girls at bay.
“And she cried and she did the whole ‘you don’t trust me,” T-Boz said of Pebbles. “That was true. She even had a tear. You remember the tear?” T-Boz added, looking at Chilli. “We call it the ‘Demi Moore tear’.”
T-Boz hastened to add there were positives in TLC’s relationship with Pebbles, whose real name is Perri McKissack (later changed to Perri Reid after married music mogul L.A. Reid).
“I will say that (Pebbles) did do some good for us,” she said. “She put us together, she taught us some things. However, there are times when you are working with people that there are things that you are not going to agree with, and you don’t like their ways, and you part. And I don’t think she ever got over that.”
DJ Evny asked if Pebbles still owned the name.
“No,” T-Boz responded. “We had to buy it from her — a million dollars a letter. Three million dollars.”
“And she said she didn’t get enough money,” added Chilli.
Chilli and T-Boz added that Pebbles threatened to sue the duo if she saw something in the movie she didn’t like. “Crazy Sexy Cool” debuts on VH1 on Oct. 21, 2013.
Check out the rest of the lengthy interview by clicking here.
