Last week, shortly after Rihanna wore her now infamous nipple-exposing dress to the CFDA Awards, TLC was asked how they felt about the way young artists dressed.
The comment “Everytime I see you, you don’t have to be naked,” from TLC soon made its way around the internet. The result? Media outlets accused the duo of slamming Rihanna who soon responded by posting photos of T-Boz and Chilli topless on Twitter.
In a new interview with Yahoo! Music, T-Boz and Chilli say that the conversation was not about Rihanna and that their words were manipulated and edited out of context.
“We never mentioned any artists’ name,” said T-Boz “You can do what you want, we don’t care. We were talking to the little girls who want to be on television or be singers…because a lot of record companies, labels say, ‘You gotta take your clothes off.’”
They added that they were overseas touring in Australia and hadn’t even seen Rihanna’s dress at the time of the interview. “I was talking about television shows,” explained T-Boz. “And then you heard me say something like, ‘Every time we see ‘you,’ you’re naked’ and they put her picture up. C’mon man. How can I talk about something I didn’t even see or care about?”
Per those topless photos Riri posted, the duo said that they were part of a shoot they did to raise breast cancer awareness.
“If we do something like that, there is a reason behind it,” explained Chilli. “It’s not just because we just feel so comfortable and this is what we’re doing and it’s just for nothing or to get attention. That’s not what we do.”
TLC ended with some “grown woman” advice to Rihanna, and any artist who takes to Twitter when they have a problem with someone, “Come to us directly. Talk to us. Don’t start a Twitter war and all that kind of stuff. That’s silly,” said T-Boz.
Watch their entire interview below.