- The “T” in “TLC” stands for Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins.
- T-Boz has dealt with sickle cell disease ever since she was a little girl.
- Her disease put her in a coma after breastfeeding her daughter.
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins keeps winning every single day. When she was a young girl, Watkins, 53, learned that she had sickle cell disease (first identified as sickle cell anemia.) The condition is incurable and can be quite fatal – something that she found out in 2000 after welcoming her daughter, Chase Rolinson.
“On the first night, the nurses told me I needed to breastfeed her. It seemed like the right thing to do. And they make you feel so guilty if you don’t pop your t—–s out for the baby immediately,” Watkins wrote in her memoir, A Sick Life, per PEOPLE. “But sickle-cell patients need every drop of fluid they can get, and losing that much breast milk almost stopped my heart. Eventually, my body shut down, and I fell into a coma. I spent three days unconscious in the ICU.”
In 2006, T-Boz also underwent surgery to battle a benign brain tumor. The growth was the size of a strawberry, and doctors had to be careful removing it due to her sickle cell disease. She went to Dr. Keith Black from Cedars-Sinai, one of the country’s best neurosurgeons. To remove the tumor, he had to tease the tumor away from nerves in her brain so they wouldn’t do any damage to T-Boz’s facial or hearing nerves. She could have come out of the surgery without the ability to hear, balance, or speak.
Thankfully, the surgery was a success. And to this day, she continues to successfully manage her sickle cell disease.
Ahead of TLC Forever, the June 3 Lifetime documentary about the band, here’s what you need to know about T-Boz’s health.
T-Boz Diagnosed With Sickle-Cell Disease
“When you have sickle cell,” T-Boz explained in her memoir, A Sick Life, per The Current, “your red blood cells get stuck on their way around your veins, causing blockages and stopping the oxygen from getting to your vital organs. Where there’s a lack of oxygen, you can go into a crisis, an attack of severe pain, sometimes located only in a certain spot and sometimes all over your body. Often, it’s hard to breathe or walk or even do something as basic as holding a pen. A crisis can happen without any warning. Just, bam! You’re in the hospital again.”
T-Boz would say that her sickle cell was how Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes began to draw her signature black lunes under her left eye. It began when one of Bobby Brown‘s dancers allegedly punched Lisa in the eye during a fight when the dancer rudely bumped into Lopes at a party. Left Eye was walking T-Boz out of the party because she had accidentally drank a “flaming Dr. Pepper shot,” and those with sickle cell aren’t supposed to drink alcohol.
“That incident was how Lisa started drawing under her left eye,” wrote T-Boz, per The Current. “It started as a Band-Aid to cover up a burst blood vessel, and later she turned it into a black mark.”
What Is Sickle-Cell Anemia/Disease?
Sickle cell disease is “a group of inherited red blood cell disorders that affect hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen through the body,” according to the National Institute of Health. “The condition affects more than 100,000 people in the United States and 20 million people worldwide.”
Red blood cells are usually disc-shaped and flexible enough to move easily through blood vessels. If you have sickle cell disease, “your red blood cells are crescent- or “sickle”-shaped. These cells do not bend or move easily and can block blood flow to the rest of your body,” per the NIH. These cause serious problems like stroke, eye issues, infections, and pain.
Sickle cell anemia, per the Mayo Clinic, is when those with sickle cell suffer fatigue due to anemia. There are also issues with swelling, difficulty walking, and vision issues.
How Long Has T-Boz Been Sick?
T-Boz has battled sickle cell since she was seven years old when she was diagnosed with sickle-cell disease. When she was diagnosed, she was told that she wouldn’t live past her 30s. “I looked around. Who was he talking about? I was going to be a famous performer,” she wrote in her 2017 memoir, A Sick Life, per PEOPLE. “He was clearly mistaken.”
In 1996, she learned she had sickle-beta thalassemia with arthritis, a form of sickle cell that’s often less severe. She has since proven her doctor wrong, living past her 30s and welcoming her daughter, Chase, with then-husband Dedrick “Mack 10” Rolison.
How Is T-Boz Doing Today?
“Often, it’s hard to breathe or walk,” she wrote of her illness in her memoir, per PEOPLE. “Some days I wake up consumed by pain. It’s like knives stabbing me over and over again in my joints. Chase gave me a reason to keep pushing through.”
In 2022, she spoke about how using CBD has helped her deal with the disease. ” “I was able to make it through four tours without getting sick,” she told ESSENCE. “And everybody who’s been on tour with TLC knows that’s astronomical for me, honey, because I am known for messing up a tour.”
She launched her own wellness line, TLCBD, in 2019. ” I was inspired to create this product line based on my own success story with CBD-rich extract. I realized what a positive impact it had on my life and I wanted to bring that to my fans and the world. TLCBD products not only help people look good, but feel good too,” she said in a press release. “The vision of my TLCBD line is to help people own their wellness. I want people to feel good from the inside out.”