While she may have given off the image of a crazy bad girl who burned her boyfriend's house down, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was anything but to the bandmates who performed with her.
Rather, the late TLC rapper-singer, tragically killed in a car crash Thursday night in Honduras, often let her music do the talking--preferring to keep mum about her private life and, for example, the 10-year-old girl she adopted in Honduras.
"Lisa had one of the biggest hearts of anybody we know. She did charity work for kids all the time for Lupus disease that people don't know about...she adopted a little girl named Snow," said surviving bandmate Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas who, along with fellow TLC-er Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, paid a tearful phone call to MTV's Total Request Live Friday.
"She was a very special person, very talented. She could airbrush, paint, build furniture...She could do anything if she put her mind to it."
Added Chilli: "The last time I talked to her...everything was going good. We just recently started to get stuff back together and we were waiting on her to get back into the studio."
Lopes, the "crazy" one in the Grammy-winning Atlanta-based R&B trio, was the only fatality in a car accident involving seven people Thursday night in Roma, a small community outside the city of Jutiapa, 150 miles north of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
The group was reportedly on their way from La Ceiba to San Pedro Sula, when the rented Mitsubishi Montero SUV carrying them tipped over. Left Eye suffered a blow to the head and died instantly, while the unidentified passengers sustained minor injuries and were taken to a nearby hospital. They're expected to be released within a few days.
Police in Honduras told MTV News that Left Eye was behind the wheel of the vehicle when she apparently lost control. It's not known whether she was wearing a seatbelt.
According to Lopes' publicist Jay Marose, the singer, her brother, sister, two music video producers, and three members of little-known R&B group called Egypt, were down in the Honduran city of La Ceiba since March 20 working on a multimedia project that included a book and a video.
Marose said the book, called Open, was an autobiographical account of her spiritual journey since finding peace of mind in a Honduran healing village that promotes and teaches a form of African herbal medicine. Apparently, she loved it so much that she began to put down roots there and bought a condo.
"She absolutely loved the country and wanted to live there," said Marose. "Anybody who watched her over the last couple of years saw that there was literally a physical change in her because she had changed so much. She was an amazing person filled with boundless energy."
The sometimes tempermental hip-hopster fell in love with the Central American nation after visiting there 1998 in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitchell, which killed thousands of people and devastated the region's economy. She kept going back, often volunteering at a child welfare center in La Ceiba and learning about the culture and herbal medicine.
Following news of her death, fans poured onto the Internet and expressed their grief on message boards and e-mails. Traffic was so high on Left Eye's official Website, eyenetics.com, that it was temporarily shut down.
Upon hearing of the tragedy, many of Lopes' contemporary popsters paid tribute to her.
"We're all really sad to hear that she was in the accident. We're sending our love," No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani told TRL.
"Lisa was a wonderful person who brought a great energy and vibe when she walked in the room. She will truly be missed," read a statement from 'N Sync (news - web sites).
"What I liked most about her was that she was a rebel, she wasn't afraid to go against the grain," said Tha Row Founder, Marion "Suge" Knight, whom Lopes signed with as a solo artist under the name of N.I.N.A. ("New Identity Not Applicable").
Marose said that before her death, Left Eye was collaborating with David Bowie, who was writing material for her solo record and possibly for a future TLC album. Both were admirers of each other's work, and the Thin White Duke had at one time considered having TLC sing backup on his song, "Thursday's Child," which appeared on 2000's album Hours.
Lopes had also been talking about collaborating with fellow Philadelphia natives Pink and Eve on a track called "Philly Girls."
Marose said the four new tracks recorded with TLC last November were some of the group's best.
"I've heard them and they're the best work they've ever done," he said. "I think they hit a really rough patch and they just got back to a point where they were doing this for a love of TLC."
Lopes was due back in the United States on Monday to join her fellow TLC sisters in the studio. Instead, her body is being flown back to Atlanta, where funeral services are currently pending.
Posted by Jen on Saturday, April 27, 2002 @ 11:25 a.m.
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