Apparently people were looking forward to seeing Chilli and Usher’s love story play out in VH1 biopic, CrazyS*xyCool: The TLC Story. However, unsurprisingly (well, maybe surprisingly to some), Usher was not even mentioned in the film. But if you ask Chilli why her “first real love” was excluded from the movie, she’ll tell you that it’s simply because their relationship had no real relevance to the story of TLC.
“It just didn’t fit into the part of the film because you got to understand when we did this – telling our story – it’s from the beginning. The people in our lives in the beginning were the people that you saw. So as time went along, Usher didn’t have – I don’t know our relationship wasn’t so significant when it came to my group,” Chilli said during an interview with The Jasmine Brand.
She went on to say that the romantic relationships that were referenced in the movie were only highlighted because of their relevance to TLC.
“That [Dallas Austin] was a different story because he was our producer. Tionne got married – and really we didn’t even go on her marriage because the fact that she was told that she could never have kids and she had Chase – then it made sense for you to kind of touch on that a bit. So with more so, what we were really dealing with was the most important part that we wanted people to see. All the other little things, who we dated here and all the other loves in our lives, to me it just didn’t make sense to put in there; so it wasn’t like it’s intentional, it just wasn’t necessary,” she continued.
The 42-year-old beauty added that she’s not really sure why people are still so caught up on their relationship—especially since they aren’t.
“I don’t want to – I’m going to be honest with you. The whole – I still to this day don’t understand – don’t get me wrong, Usher and I are friends. We’re cool. People are so caught up in that whole Chili-Usher thing and it’s just like everybody’s just caught up in but we’re not. So it’s like the movie was about the TLC story, it’s our thing. It doesn’t mean it’s everybody and it wasn’t about having a conversation with anybody to tell them they’re in it or not.”
As for the ongoing drama involving the group’s former manager, Pebbles Reid, and her displeasure with the way that she was portrayed in the film, Chilli says they actually held back some things that could’ve been included in the movie.
“Personally, all I know is that she knew from the beginning that we were going to do the film – I told her myself. At the end of the day, when it comes to legal matters, there’s no way Viacom would have did this movie with us and risked getting sued by anybody including Lisa. So basically everything we put in there was true – it was not a lie. We actually softened a bit of some of the situations – we didn’t even go in for real. But it’s like I’m not keeping up what’s going on with her, what she said because it doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to my group member. At the end of the day, we told our story and I’m happy that we’re able to tell our story because it’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a very very long time.”
It seems like the back and forth between Pebbles and TLC could drag on and on forever.
Turn the page for audio from her interview. What do you think of Chilli’s explanation for excluding Usher from the movie?
