Left-Eye’s uncle kyle and assistant stephanie speaks on the fanmail drama, Lisa’s death, a shady contract by TLC’s manager Bill Diggins, and more!

News • Shit Storm! Lisa’s Uncle Kyle & Assistant Stephanie Talk!

Kyle Young:
"She went to her grave without anything being resolved with them [T-Boz & Chilli]. That says a lot." 

If Lisa was still alive do you think she’d still be in TLC?

Kyle Young:
I don’t believe she’d be in TLC. They sided against her so much. Those girls didn’t even talk from like….before FanMail came out. Only for professional things – if they needed to sign contracts, they had to do rehearsals. So you know, how can you even have a perception of what she was thinking to make a movie on how she possibly could’ve felt or how her reactions or whatever way….you didn’t even talk to her to know that! And when you did talk to her it was about some bullshit and you just made her pissed and it just pushed buttons, as opposed to being happy for a group member… [Again questioned whether he thinks Lisa would be in TLC] "No she wouldn’t."

Stephanie:
I don’t think she would, either. She had told me that she felt like she had grown as much as she possibly could grow in that group and there was nothing else more that she could do. And she didn’t feel like it was right that she could stay in a group that she wasn’t going to grow because she had so many ideas and they weren’t interested in pursuing those ideas with her so she wanted to fulfill her contract so that she could separate herself from that and move on to the next thing that she wanted to do. There were so many other things that she wanted to do that had nothing to do with music, so I don’t even know if she would still be recording music if she were still alive today. I think she would be involved with music in some way, but she actually told me about an idea one time that she had to try to help people manage their time better. She said she wanted to come up with this time system called "EyeTime." She said she did all this research and found out that most people plan their day and the tasks that they can achieve in the day done in 30 minute increments. She said but if you break up time slots into 20 minutes you’ll be able to get 3 tasks done per hour instead of 2 tasks done per hour….she was on stuff like that! So I don’t even know if she’d be doing music but if she would I don’t think she’d be with the group.

On Lisa’s assets being frozen while her family and friends were still in Honduras and having no money for medical treatment

Stephanie:
You know, she had been friends with Suge Knight right before we went to Honduras and of course we’re in this financial situation in Honduras trying to figure out how to get care to everyone and everybody looks at me like "Call Suge and ask him for some money! And I’m like "I don’t know him like that!" I know him but….he’s not gonna give me any money! And they’re like…"Tell him we’re in a situation and to send us $10,000." So I asked for the money and he said of course, go to Western Union and I’m going to wire you $10,000. Went to the Western Union – it wasn’t there. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and then I talked to somebody that worked for him that was helping me communicate between us that a bystander was like "Man, why are you sendin them any money, that’s Left Eye, the label’s gonna take care of everything. She tryin’ to get you for your money!" So he thought I was trying to gank him for $10,000. That was high on my concern list.

On the problems during FanMail

There was confusion back and forth, there was bickering back and forth. A lot of hate. An example during this "Dear Lie" video they weren’t talking at all. Bille Woodruff who is director of "Dear Lie"came to me as I came on set and explained to me that Lisa doesn’t want to do it, they’re not talking, and can I do something about it. So I immediately go to the trailer and Lisa was like "I"m not doin’ it. I’m sick of their shit. I’m sick of this shit. It’s constantly somethin’, they talk back and forth." She said she wanted to crack Chilli in the eye…she was just tired of it! At that time Lorenzo was with her so he was in the trailer also….which is another falsehood. Lorenzo just like any boyfriend would tell her things. He wasn’t so overly influential as they tried to make it seem in the movie. Lorenzo is the married character. After a minute I went and I kinda convinced her to do it she she continued to get her hair and makeup done. I went and talked to the girls and I asked them "Y’all need to squash this you know put it away. Look y’all in this business, y’all sisters, make this most of it not many people get this opportunity in life. You all are spending so much valuable time in fighting, not in talking." I wasn’t being biased to them I try as hard as I can not to be biased. I wasn’t jumping on Lisa’s side. I wanted to understand why they were doing it. So they agreed with me in fact told me "Yes, we are going to talk Kyle. You’re right." I went back to the trailer and not more than 15-30 minutes later the road manager comes into the trailer and she says "I’m very sorry, I didn’t know they were going to do that I thought you were going to be a part of this interview and on and on and on." So we’re looking around and we don’t know what she’s talking about. And then it dawned on her that we didn’t know what she was talkin’ about either cuz we had all been in the trailer. She says, "They’re going an interview talking about you." And she says "I didn’t know this was going to happen I hope you’re not mad at me." At that point Lisa was like "Wow." I just left them! So that means that they had planned that before I came and right after they left they went and did that interview even after agreeing with me. Lisa was shocked. THAT is the reason that she did "The Challenge." It was in direct response to them doing this interview about her, talking badly, and Lisa at that point wasn’t really fighting back.She did a few things where she wouldn’t show up and she wouldn’t do this but, you knew she more or less tried to keep the peace. It was just an unfortunate situation and I felt sorry for her that she was going through this.

What would you say to Chilli & T-Boz now?

Stephanie:
I would probably have a conversation with Chilli and explain my frustration with how she presented herself to a lot of press outlets and radio stations and things like that. She pissed me off SO badly. I know they don’t talk. They’re not friends. They just didn’t have anything in common. And then all the drama is what made it worse but they just don’t have anything in common except the music. She [Chilli] has contacted my cellphone before to reach Lisa because Lisa always lost her phone so she would tell everybody to call me. And she [Lisa] always changed her home phone number to where they would call me and say "Stephanie I need to talk to Lisa give me the number." If you wanted to talk to her you HAD to go through me, it’s just the way it was. She had used this method of contacting Lisa before, maybe 4 or 5 months before Lisa passed away when they were renegotiating their contract. That’s it.

On Shady Contracts with Bill Diggins & TLC:

Stephanie:
The rest of that was a lot of shady shit in renegotiating their contract. For example, the contract was sent to Lisa to renegotiate it after so many albums they had an opportunity to renegotiate their contract for the last couple of albums to determine things like will one of their 2 albums they have to turn it will it be a Greatest Hits, should it be a Holiday album, should it be a live tour……that type of thing. The manager of the group is also Chilli’s manager, which is a conflict of interests and always has been because of course he’s going to pick the opportunities that best serves his client – HER – in addition to the group.

Kyle Young:
This manager’s Bill Diggins. You seen [in the movie] they argued and screamed about it being a conflict of interests with Perri (Pebbles), SAME THING. And Chilli’s doing the same thing. Please get your facts right, please.

Stephanie:
They over-nighted the contracts to her and back then you didn’t get contracts over e-mail over the internet. We had a stack of over 400 pages from Fedex with like 100 different sticky tabs in there for her to initial. She’s like "Cool, you know when we get back in town in a couple days I’ll let my lawyer go over it." Bill Diggins is like "There’s no time we have to have the contract back to us by tomorrow. You have to sign today. She’s like "Well I don’t want to sign today I want read this and be sure everything’s ok." "You know what if you don’t sign it you’re not going to have your input and it has to be done today." OK well that’s very unfair to her but that’s one thing. Then she and I start going throught he contract to try and figure it out ourselves because she has no time to overnight it to her lawyer in Atlanta and then have them look at it. So then we start lookin’ through that stuff. Bill had written in there that his cut was doubled. But he didn’t tell Lisa anything about that. She didn’t want him to be the manager anyway, so not only is he locked in the contract as their manager but he gets to double his pay. She also didn’t want Dallas to produce all of the songs because she felt that they should give some other producers an opportunity and TLC should grow and not have the same sound all the time. They refused to do any other production with anybody else except Dallas in there which is obviously a conflict also because that’s Chilli’s baby daddy. She called Bill back and she says "I’m not really comfortable with this but I don’t wanna be a troublemaker. If the other two girls are fine with it forget it, I’ll just sign it." He says "Oh yes I already have a signed from Tionne and Chilli. She says "You know what I don’t wanna cause any problems" and she signs the contract and sends it in. She decides to call one of the girls that night and she finds out that Tionne never signed the document at that point. Straight up lied to her to get her to sign it!

So Lisa passes away, a couple days later I hear Chilli on the Ryan Cameron show talking about "Uh, I just love my sister so much. I had been trying for weeks to get in touch with her to tell her we needed to make things right." And that was bullshit. Not once did my phone ring, not once didn’t Lisa’s house phone ring. It was bullshit. And it pisses me off. I don’t give a fuck what it is, it’s unfair to Lisa. And you’re pissin’ on her grave to get sympathy from her that you don’t deserve!

About Tionne being in the middle of situations:

Stephanie:
She [Tionne] always wanted to "Whatever y’all decide I’m cool with it." She was indifferent which pissed Lisa off because she felt like "Tionne if you don’t agree with it, say something." But she just never would because Tionne never wanted to cause problems.

On Lisa’s mother Wanda’s recent car accident:

She was in the hospital, she was out for a few days. It was just reminiscent and you just don’t want to have these words on your lips. The car flipped over a few times. Not one of them [T-Boz or Chilli] contacted her. Wanda’s tellin’ me "No they still haven’t called." She’s trying to to get stressed it bothered her so bad with her trying to get well.

On TLC’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Japan

Stephanie:
Do you know they didn’t even let the family know? They flew over there it was a huge deal. They found out about it from a fan! It’s extra and disrespectful. They don’t even get to know about it?

On the MOBO Awards:

Kyle:
They didn’t even want them to be backstage. They didn’t’ want them to. In fact they sat them so far behind it wasn’t until once the official of the MOBO Awards said "Why are you all sitting here you’re Left Eye’s family." And he reached out and had them interviewed. They weren’t happy about that.

On the re-used 3D Raps:

Stephanie:
During the process of fulfilling that contract [TLC's] she got a solo deal. So the last couple of albums were still due on TLC’s contract at the time that Lisa was putting out her solo project. The record label wouldn’t put her stuff out until she went back in the studio with TLC. And she’s like "Fine lets do it." She turned in her work from her solo project and they wouldn’t pay her. She actually had to seek legal action to get her money. When you record an album you go in and she might do 30 different raps and only 3 of them are picked for the album. So she was goin’ in and doing a lot of adlibs, trying out songs that they didn’t know were going to be for the album or not yet. Those raps hadn’t been placed on songs yet. She went to Honduras, she never came back. So all they had to work with was just those things that she had played around with in the studio. So they placed them on the songs where they thought that it would fit. Which they never really got a chance to get in there and record together for that album.