[INTERVIEW] TLC’s Chilli Opens Up About Launching Petition Against Media + Responds to Ashley Reid Verbal Attack & Explains Why Usher Wasn’t Included In Movie

Fresh off of making VH1 history, we recently caught up with Chilli (real name  Rozonda Thomas), one third of the mega group TLC. The singer spoke candidly about the film’s (Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story) success and criticism, explaining how she feels about Pebbles’ alleged lawsuit, comments made by Ashley Reid (Pebbles and L.A. Reid’s daughter) and backlash received by some members of Left-Eye’s family. She even went into why Usher was absent from the story line. One of the more interesting parts of our conversation was news that she had launched a petition, demanding that media outlets stop slandering and bullying children. And while the owner of Media Take Out has since apologized for posting some not-so-nice things about her teenage son, she’s adamant that she’ll continue to fight for the rights of children that end up in the press.

Listen to the full interview below and check out a few excerpts of the interview.

Jasmine BRAND: So first of all, congratulations on the film – it made VH1 history – are you surprised at all?

Chili: Yeah! I didn’t know what was going to happen. We just – I don’t know – I hope that we would do great numbers and people would tune in and stuff but you just never really know….I felt it. It was a feeling. I didn’t know how successful it would become; you know what I’m saying? And the only time I felt real confident about – when you put on success levels that I always felt that we would be the biggest girl group and it was just something I felt very early on because there’s just something special about TLC that was bigger than the three of us.

Jasmine BRAND: The film was pretty lengthy and I heard in other interviews that you all have both said that there was a ton that you all left out and that you all even wanted to make a series or some sort about it. Were you all trying to convince the network to do that?

Chilli: Well, we just kind of jokingly said it. We did say maybe it should be like a three part – kind of like when ‘Temptations’ first came on, it came on three times a week. It’s like part one, part two and part three. They were pretty confident that they can get enough in the two and a half hours. At the end of the day, we felt we’re happy with how it turned out.

Jasmine BRAND: I know when I was watching the show – there were tons of people asking why Usher wasn’t included in the film – was that intentional or you just didn’t feel like going into that?