50 Fun Facts About TLC

In early-1990s videos, TLC's members decorated their baggy clothes and glasses with which items?

Condoms were the trio's way of promoting safe sex to a young audience, and Lisa Lopes even wore one over a lens of her glasses.

A 1994 house fire began when Left Eye of TLC set light to what in her boyfriend's bathtub?

Sneakers he had just bought went up in flames after a fight, and the fiberglass tub melted and spread the blaze through the house. She was sentenced to five years of probation.

With a hit album selling millions, TLC stunned the music industry in July 1995 by declaring what?

Bankruptcy was the trio's way out of a 1991 contract that left each member with under $50,000 a year, and they listed debts of $3.5 million.

TLC performed the theme song for which Nickelodeon series that first aired in 1994?

All That opened with the trio's theme throughout its original ten-season run of sketches and musical guests, which ended in 2005.

The CD insert of TLC's 1999 album FanMail unfolds into a poster printed with thousands of what?

Fans' names cover the poster as a thank-you to the people who had written to the trio, the same gratitude that gave the record its title after a long gap between albums.

TLC paid for their self-titled 2017 album by raising about $400,000 from supporters on which website?

Kickstarter backers met the $150,000 goal in under 48 hours, making it the fastest most-funded pop project the site had seen.

T-Boz of TLC hid which lifelong illness until she was hospitalized on the group's first tour?

Sickle cell anemia was diagnosed when she was a child, and after going public in 1996 she became a spokesperson for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America.

In the celebrated video for TLC's 1994 single Creep, the trio dance in which matching outfits?

Satin pajamas and tight choreography made the clip one of pop's most recognizable, and the song became the group's first number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

TLC's version of Sleigh Ride first appeared on the soundtrack of which 1992 Christmas film?

Home Alone 2 featured the trio's take on the Leroy Anderson standard, which got its own video a year later for their label's holiday compilation.

In 1995, Waterfalls made TLC the first Black act to win which honor at MTV's annual VMAs?

Video of the Year was one of four trophies the million-dollar clip collected that night, after months as a fixture on MTV.

TLC formed in 1990 in which city, whose mayor later gave the trio a key and declared a TLC Day?

Atlanta had been home to T-Boz since she was nine, and producers Jermaine Dupri and Rico Wade worked with the newly formed group on its first demos.

Which 1994 TLC album became the first by a girl group to be certified diamond in America?

CrazySexyCool reached 12-times platinum and spent more than two years on the Billboard 200, even though Left Eye was free to attend only a few of the recording sessions.

Which 1999 single about female self-esteem gave TLC their fourth and final US number one?

Unpretty topped the Hot 100 for three weeks, and its video, which cost over $1.6 million, shows Chilli fleeing a hospital rather than go through with implants.

Left Eye of TLC died in a 2002 car crash while filming a documentary in which country?

Honduras was where she was volunteering at a children's development center, and the footage she shot there aired in 2007 as The Last Days of Left Eye.

TLC's Waterfalls is cited as the first number-one song to refer to which disease?

HIV/AIDS claims the man in the second verse, whose decline the video shows in a mirror, while the first verse follows a young man drawn into the drug trade.

Which singer's 2001 video U Got It Bad features his then-girlfriend, Chilli of TLC, as the love interest?

Usher continued the story in U Don't Have to Call, where she has a cameo. After their split, a New York Times critic called him one of the country's most famous ex-boyfriends.

TLC's 1994 album includes a cover of If I Was Your Girlfriend, a 1987 single by which artist?

Prince sang the original in the pitched-up voice of his alter ego Camille, and TLC kept their version in the set for the FanMail Tour five years later.

Left Eye of TLC raps on Never Be the Same Again, a 2000 UK number one for which Spice Girl?

Melanie C entered the British chart at the top with the duet, her first solo number one, and Left Eye co-wrote the song as well as rapping on it.

Hype Williams's video for TLC's No Scrubs places the trio, in metallic outfits, in what setting?

A space station matched the futuristic look of the FanMail era, and the clip beat an otherwise all-male field to MTV's Best Group Video award in 1999.

Which girl group opened for TLC on the first North American leg of the 1999 FanMail Tour?

Destiny's Child warmed up the crowds in 1999, and Christina Aguilera took over the opening slot when the tour returned for a second leg in 2000.

TLC was named for the initials of Tionne, Lisa and which founding member, who left before the debut?

Crystal Jones helped dream up the group but was gone by 1991, so her replacement Rozonda Thomas was nicknamed Chilli to keep the name intact.

Which singer, known for the 1980s hit Mercedes Boy, managed TLC and gave the group its name?

Pebbles signed the trio to her company Pebbitone in 1991, and when they parted ways the group had to buy back the rights to its own name.

TLC signed in 1991 to which record label, also the launchpad for Toni Braxton and Pink?

LaFace Records took its name from the combined nicknames of its two producer founders, who signed the group through a production deal with their manager's company.

Before TLC's first big audition, set up by a workplace contact, where did T-Boz work?

A hair salon took her on as an apprentice who entered hair shows, and a connection made there led to the audition with the trio's future manager.

Left Eye of TLC moved south to join the group with a small keyboard and $750 from which city?

Philadelphia was where she grew up, the daughter of an Army staff sergeant and a seamstress, and she attended the city's High School for Girls.

Lisa Lopes of TLC became Left Eye after a compliment on that eye from which New Edition member?

Michael Bivins told her the eye was what drew him to her, and she played up the name with a black stripe beneath it and, later, a pierced eyebrow.

Soon after their debut album, TLC went on a first national tour opening for which rapper?

MC Hammer's tour was interrupted for the trio in the Southwest, where T-Boz was taken to hospital and some of their concerts were cancelled.

Which debut single introduced TLC and earned Left Eye a Grammy nomination as a co-writer?

Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg was stitched together from seven samples and reached the top ten in 1992, and its video was the first the trio ever filmed.

Which hitmaker wrote and produced TLC's slow jam Red Light Special, a number-two hit in 1995?

Babyface wrote it alone, having co-written the trio's earlier ballad Baby-Baby-Baby, and both songs stalled at number two on the Hot 100.

Which producer, TLC's main collaborator since their debut album, has a son with Chilli?

Dallas Austin wrote and produced Creep, and his demand for $4.2 million and creative control stalled work on FanMail until the two sides came to terms.

Left Eye of TLC received five years of probation for a 1994 fire at which NFL receiver's home?

Andre Rison reconciled with her after the blaze, and the two went on dating on and off for seven years, until 2001.

Under their 1991 record deal, TLC's three members said they shared roughly how much per album sold?

56 cents was the figure for the whole trio, not for each member, and the fight over that contract ended in late 1996 with a renegotiated deal.

Left Eye so opposed TLC's cheating anthem Creep that she threatened to wear what in its video?

Black tape over her mouth would have signalled her protest at a song about answering a cheating partner by cheating back, which was drawn from T-Boz's own experience.

T-Boz wrote the poem behind a TLC number one in disgust at an episode of which talk show?

Ricki Lake aired an episode in which men insulted women's bodies, and T-Boz, watching from a hospital bed, wrote out her answer as a poem.

Which future director of Straight Outta Compton made the million-dollar video for TLC's Waterfalls?

F. Gary Gray filmed the trio as liquid figures standing on the sea, on an unsteady plastic platform that frightened T-Boz, who could not swim.

Which production team, best known for work with OutKast, co-wrote and produced TLC's Waterfalls?

Organized Noize wrote it with Left Eye and Marqueze Etheridge, but Arista's president disliked the song and had to be talked into releasing it as a single.

Which Dungeon Family singer, years before his solo hits, sang background vocals on TLC's Waterfalls?

CeeLo Green, then a member of Goodie Mob, joined session singer Debra Killings and the trio themselves on the backing vocals, long before his hit Crazy with Gnarls Barkley.

Kandi Burruss and Tameka Cottle, who co-wrote TLC's No Scrubs, were members of which R&B group?

Xscape bandmates Burruss and Cottle first meant the song for a joint project of their own; Burruss began the lyric on an envelope in her car before it was handed to TLC.

Which New York rap group answered TLC's No Scrubs in 1999 with a parody from the male point of view?

Sporty Thievz called their reply No Pigeons, turning the complaint back on women, and it gave the Yonkers act a top 20 hit in Britain.

TLC's FanMail was certified a million-seller in which country, where their next album 3D reached number two?

Japan stayed loyal: 3D found little success elsewhere overseas, and MTV Japan gave the group its Legend Award in 2013.

Left Eye of TLC joined Da Brat, Missy Elliott and Angie Martinez on a 1997 remix by which rapper?

Lil' Kim's all-female remix of Not Tonight, made for the film Nothing to Lose, peaked at number six on the Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination.

Left Eye of TLC mentored which trio, whose self-titled 1999 debut album went platinum?

Blaque took its name from a production company co-owned by her brother Ronald, and she helped the group land a deal with Columbia Records.

T-Boz of TLC appeared alongside rappers Nas and DMX, both in their film debuts, in which 1998 crime drama?

Belly was the first feature by music-video director Hype Williams, and it cast her as Tionne, the girlfriend of Nas's character Sincere.

TLC played a rap act called Sex as a Weapon in which early-1990s comedy sequel?

House Party 3 has Play, of the duo Kid 'n Play, trying to manage the trio's rowdy group, in a cast that also gave Chris Tucker his first film role.

Who played Chilli in VH1's 2013 biopic about TLC, which drew 4.5 million viewers on its first airing?

Keke Palmer took the role in a film that Chilli and T-Boz themselves helped produce, the highest-rated television film premiere of 2013.

Which 2005 UPN reality series followed T-Boz and Chilli of TLC as they chose a singer for a new single?

R U the Girl ended with 20-year-old choreographer Tiffany Baker recording I Bet with the duo, who made clear the winner would be a guest and never a replacement for Left Eye.

T-Boz of TLC played a hardened prison inmate named Sheila on which daytime soap opera from 2016?

Days of Our Lives brought her back in 2017 and 2018 as the same character, by then a zany ex-con, after a first stint of two months.

Which rapper joined TLC and New Kids on the Block on The Main Event, a 2015 tour?

Nelly shared the bill again in 2019, when he and the duo co-headlined the Whole Lotta Hits Tour with Flo Rida in support.

Which West Coast rapper guests on Way Back, the lead single from TLC's self-titled 2017 album?

Snoop Dogg's verse arrived on a single issued through 852 Musiq, the independent label the duo set up for the release, and it was not sent to radio.

Which pop star pledged $5,000 to the 2015 crowdfunding drive for TLC's final studio album?

Katy Perry was one of several famous backers, alongside Bette Midler, Justin Timberlake and New Kids on the Block, who put in $10,000.