Singer Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins suffered a double blow to her health in 2002 after her TLC bandmate Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes died as she battled sickle cell anaemia complications.
The rapper was killed in a car crash in Honduras 15 years ago, and the news of her loss came at a particularly bad time for T-Boz, because she had just been treated for complications relating to the blood disorder. She was left so distraught by Lisa's death, she ended up requiring further medical care.
"That was one of the hardest times in my life," the 47-year-old recalled to U.S. breakfast show Good Morning America. "Lisa died three, four days after I got out the hospital, so I was frail and 90 pounds, which made me sick again. I'm like, 'What's going on?' (As) soon as something is good, it's like, everything was just (falling apart)... it was bad."
T-Boz and her fellow surviving bandmate Chilli, real name Rozonda Thomas, pressed on as a duo following Left Eye's demise, and they released their final album, the self-titled TLC, in June (17).
The pair has been touring to promote the farewell project, and T-Boz insists she can always sense her late pal's presence beside them onstage.
"We keep her spirit alive through us and our music and you feel her presence onstage," she said. "And nobody's gonna fill that void. She's up there rocking and we're dancing with her."
T-Boz has since started work on the next chapter of her career, recording her first solo album. She is also currently promoting her new memoir, A Sick Life: TLC 'n Me: Stories from On and Off the Stage, and recently returned to acting with another guest role on U.S. soap Days of Our Lives, reprising her 2016 part as tough prison inmate Sheila.
