[VIDEO] TLC Addresses Rihanna Backlash: If You Have A Problem, Holler At Us — We’re GROWN Women!

Tensions rose last week when an interview with TLC falsely targeted Rihanna as the topic of conversation. The legendary girl group commented on keeping your clothes on and selling the message not your body and because if the shoe fits wear it, the Aussie company placed an image of Rih Rih as an example and the singer came to the defense. Along with her millions of followers, the singer turned her background into images of the women, when they were a trio, posing topless covering their boobs before referring to them as “old thots.”  

While their adjacent images are child’s play to her lucrative sans clothes career, the damage was done and the girl group is now on damage control. After being mum on the situation with only T-Boz’s 13-year old daughter speaking eloquently and respectfully on the subject matter on Ask.Fm that hit home for her:

Ouch. The now duo group sat down with Yahoo Down Under to clear the air. Despite how biased their original opinion seemed anchored to the Bajan beauty, they fail to namedrop any one star.

They’re response reminds us that editing can turn an innocent answer into an unsolicited beef. Check out their interview below as the women clarify their original answers and justify their topless picture.

What question was geared towards Rihanna:

Someone asked a question, ‘have we seen Rihanna’s outfit’ and I said, ‘no’ because were over here touring and I didn’t know there was an award show and I had no clue what she wore.

How it got misconstrued:

Chilli: We never mentioned anything [about her].

T-Boz: The unfortunate part was we were giving a positive message to little girls. We were saying, ‘It’s cool if you don’t wear clothes, you can do what you want we don’t care’. We were talking to the little girls who want to be on television and be singers, even reality shows. You don’t have to be forced because a lot of record companies and labels say, ‘You got to take your clothes off.’

Chilli: We’re TV producers ourselves.

T-Boz: They even took my comment, ‘a spade is a spade,’ spliced and took it out of context to get a good story. I was talking about television shows and then you heard me say, ‘Every time we see you, you’re naked,’ and then they put her picture up, come on man. How could I talk about something I didn’t even see or care about? I’m over here.

Chilli: When we were talking about people not wearing clothes or being naked all the time, that’s just some people, its not just some artist, its actors, actress—and I said this, ‘If that’s their thing and they feel comfortable doing that, then cool; that works for them but you don’t have to go that route if you don’t want to and we don’t want people to think that’s what you have to do.

T-Boz: And we’re living proof.

On Being Straight Forward:

T-Boz: Yeah boo, check my record.

On Rih’s Twitter War:

Chilli: What’s not cool with if we have a problem with an artist or an artist has a problem with us, come to us directly, talk to us. Don’t start a Twitter war and all this kind of stuff, that’s silly.

Their Topless Picture: