TLC's Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas - FACING LOSS & FINDING LOVE

THE R&B SINGER REFLECTS ON DECADES OF UPS AND DOWNS IN THE SPOTLIGHT-AND HOW IT ALL LED TO A JOYFUL LIFE WITH BOYFRIEND MATTHEW LAWRENCE

- JANINE RUBENSTEIN

Chilli is in sweats and a T-shirt as she giddily walks into an L.A. dance studio in early May. It's the first rehearsal for TLC's summer tour, and Chilli still remembers when she and bandmates Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes first hit the road more than three decades ago. "We were on our first tour opening for MC Hammer. People were screaming for us, and I was like, 'They know who we are?"" she says of the big gig they booked after releasing their 1992 debut LP, O000000hhh... On the TLC Tip. "That's when [our fame] hit me."

It was their first taste of success and from then on it was a roller coaster. The group released chart-topping hits like "Waterfalls" (1994) and "No Scrubs" (1999), but "there was always some drama," says the four-time Grammy winner, 52. "Whether it was with management or the label, there was always something where we could never really enjoy the high." Still, despite the group's tabloid-fueling bankruptcy in 1995 and Lopes's tragic death in 2002, TLC lives on. Now Chilli and Watkins are sharing their group's inspiring but cautionary tale in TLC Forever, a Lifetime documentary out June 3. Today Chilli is at peace with the past and thriving onstage and off. The singer-who previously dated producer Dallas Austin, with whom she shares son Tron, 25, and R&B star Usher Raymond-is head over heels for fellow '90s phenom Matthew Lawrence, 43. "Of course we're both like, 'Man, if we had met years ago..."" she says of the Boy Meets World star. "But there's our time, and there's God's time. When you go through more stuff, you appreciate that person so much more."