How She Spent Her Final Days Before Fatal Car Accident ArticlePure

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes crafted a lasting legacy alongside her TLC groupmates, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, before her untimely death in 2002.

The rapper died on April 25, 2002, while on a months-long spiritual retreat in Honduras. She was driving a rented car when she suddenly swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle, causing the car to roll several times after hitting two trees.

Lopes and the seven other passengers flew out of the car, but Lopes was the only one to suffer a fatal injury, dying instantly from a fractured skull, per The New York Times.

In the years since her death, her bandmates and fans have mourned her and upheld her legacy. Multiple documentaries have also been made about her life and final days, including 2007’s Last Days of Left Eye.

“I spoke to her one time in my life and she was saying how much she and Tupac had in common, how similar they were,” director Lauren Lazin told NPR in 2007. “And she said to me, I wouldn’t be surprised if I died young as well.”

Here’s everything to know about Lisa Lopes’ death.

Who was Lisa Lopes?

Lopes gained fame as one of the members of TLC, a girl group that started in 1990 and was named after the first letter of each of the women’s names. They performed together throughout the 1990s until Lopes felt she was being creatively stifled after 1999’s FanMail, leading the group to temporarily break up.

In her personal life, Lopes also famously dated Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Andre Rison. The two had a tumultuous relationship culminating in an infamous 1994 incident in which Lopes set Rison’s sneakers on fire in his house, leading to the entire mansion burning down.

The rapper had a sour relationship with her bandmates near the end of her career, feeling as though her voice was not properly represented by their music anymore. However, the three women ultimately saw each other as sisters, Watkins told the Associated Press in a 2001 interview.

“With three women, you agree to disagree,” she said. “I’m not always going to agree with Lisa, and she’s not always going to agree with me. That’s fine.”

Where did Lisa Lopes die?

Lopes died in Honduras, which she frequented often for days or months at a time, staying at her condo near a “healing village,” her publicist, Jay Marose, told the press at the time. In early 2002, she returned to the country for a spiritual retreat, hoping to share her love for the culture and the healing rituals with her family and friends, bringing along her brother, sister and producers.

At the same time, Lopes was filming a documentary about Honduras and the Garifuna, an English-speaking people with African roots.

”It was something very personal to her, and it was something she liked to share with people,” Marose told The New York Times after her death. ”Lisa loved to travel, loved to find new places. She loved cultures that were really, truly spiritual.”

What caused Lisa Lopes’ car accident?

“Left Eye” was driving a rented Mitsubishi Montero outside a village called Roma when she lost control of the vehicle, and it spun into a ravine.

”The cause of the accident was Ms. Lopes losing control of the car,” Luis Aguilar, a spokesman for the police department in San Pedro Sula, told The New York Times. ”The car rolled over for reasons that we still don’t know and that are being investigated.”

Lopes’ brother and sister, as well as members of a small Atlanta band, Egypt, were in the car, but all survived. Producers of Lopes’ documentary were also in the vehicle and had the cameras rolling as the accident occurred, leaving footage that was later used in Last Days of Left Eye.

“I’ve not seen any kind of evidence of foul play,” director Lazin told NPR of whether she had any theories on Lopes’ accident. “There is some question as to the car itself, whether it was, you know, faulty brakes, there was something wrong with the car itself.”

What had Lisa Lopes said about death?

The “No Scrubs” singer had been vocal about her lack of fear toward death, often saying she believed in the renewal of energy.

“She said, ‘But, you know, I don’t really see death as a bad thing,’ ” Lazin told NPR of a conversation she had with Lopes months before her death. “‘I see it as a transformation of energy, I see it in a different way than a lot of people see it.’ ”

After her death, Lopes’ family set up a foundation in her honor, the Lisa Lopes Foundation, to donate money to underprivileged children and provide them with resources to better their lives. Lopes’ own spiritual motto, “energy never dies … it just transforms,” was used as the slogan.

What legacy did Lisa Lopes leave behind?

Lopes has had a long-lasting legacy after her untimely death just a month shy of her 31st birthday. Watkins and Thomas never chose to replace her in their group, and have continued making music as just a duo, honoring her along the way.

They released their first album without Lopes, TLC, in 2017 after abandoning the fourth studio album they were working on together at the time of Lopes’ death.

“We know she would want us to continue on with TLC and make sure her legacy lives on through us,” Thomas told PEOPLE in 2017.