TLC star Chilli doesn’t think she’ll ever totally "heal" from the death of Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes.
The 48-year-old singer – whose real name is Rozonda Thomas – starred alongside Left Eye in the chart-topping girl group and was left heartbroken when she died in a car accident in April 2002, aged 30.
Chilli explained: "We felt [her absence] more obviously right after she passed, when we had to continue to work.
"But over the years you heal. And I don’t think you can ever heal 100 percent, ‘cos that’s our sister and we love her. But her memory lives on through us, and we don’t look at it as a sad thing any more."
Chilli also admitted that her time in the spotlight has passed by "super-fast" since she found fame as part of TLC.
She told the BBC: "My great-grandmother used to tell me when I was little, ‘When you become an adult, the years will go by super-fast’. I didn’t know what she meant when I was a kid, but I get it now!"
TLC achieved incredible success with their second album, ‘CrazySexyCool’.
And the girl group – which also features Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins – didn’t have any doubts that it would be a commercial success.
Chilli said: "Making the album was a lot of fun. We didn’t feel the pressure of the second album jinx – we were just excited to be in the studio coming up with new material.
"And I remember when we were done, a guy at Arista records said, ‘It’s a great album and you guys will probably sell a couple of million’.
"We were like, ‘A couple of million? We’re going to sell five million. At least’.
"But we weren’t looking at it like, ‘We think we’re great’. We just knew it was special. It was one of those albums where you didn’t want to skip to the next song. It’s rare to have a project like that."
Chilli won’t totally ‘heal’ from Left Eye’s death
