As TLC’s Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes’ cause of death inches back into the spotlight, so do Diddy conspiracy theory rumors

TLC was a part of many of our childhoods, with megahit songs like “No Scrubs,” and “Unpretty” gracing the coming-of-age soundtrack of millions of fans worldwide. But in 2002, headlines surged with the worst possible news for fans: Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes had passed away. In a freaky twist of fate and the blink of an eye, the world had suddenly been forced to mourn one of music’s most influential rising stars.

Lisa Lopes has re-entered the gossip-sphere recently, not due to her immense talent, or her artistic legacy. Unfortunately, curiosity about her cause of death seems to have arisen in relation to a particularly unhinged conspiracy theory that has gone super-viral on social media, particularly on TikTok, involving Sean “Diddy” Combs. In the wake of Diddy’s recent arrest, the gravity of the charges he’s facing, and the alleged criminal enterprise he oversaw for decades, past rumors involving him and his circle, no matter how unfounded, have reignited.

TikTokers and others are pointing to a lyric from J. Cole’s 2013 track “She Knows,” which goes as follows: “Only bad thing ’bout a star is they burn up/ Rest in peace to Aaliyah/ Rest in peace to Left Eye/ Michael Jackson, I’ll see ya/ Just as soon as I die.”

Conspiracy hounds point out that all three fallen stars died on the 25th of their respective months, that all three have been connected to Diddy either professionally or tangentially, and speculate, without anything resembling factual evidence, that Diddy and cronies orchestrated some nebulous, unsubstantiated homicide plot worthy of a Batman villain.

Is there any credence to the rumors that there’s something sinister behind Lopes’ death? The truth, as it turns out, is far less dramatic, and more tragic.

How did TLC’s Left Eye die?

Lisa Lopes, also known as “Left Eye,” tragically passed away at just 30 years old from a “fracture of the base of the cranium” and “open cerebral trauma” as a result of a car accident. The incident occurred on April 25, 2002, after Lopes rented an SUV in Honduras. While driving, she swerved to avoid a truck, and right after she turned to the left to avoid an oncoming car. According to reports, the car rolled several times before hitting a tree. Lopes died at the scene.

Eerily, the accident was captured on video, as a documentary about her life was being filmed during her spiritual retreat in Honduras. In the footage, it’s clear that Lopes was the only one not wearing a seatbelt at the time of impact, and she was the sole fatality in the crash, which had eight people in total in the car.

What makes the incident even more heart-wrenching is that Lopes had a premonition that her time was near. Just two weeks before her death, she was involved in another fatal car accident, this time as a passenger. Her assistant was driving, and the accident claimed the life of a 10-year-old boy named Bauron Isaul Fuentes Lopez. According to Philadelphia Weekly, visibility in the area where the accident occurred was poor, and “it was often difficult to see pedestrians.”

The same report by the Philadelphia Journal stated that the boy had been walking behind his siblings when he stepped off the median and was immediately hit by a van driven by Lopes’ assistant, Stephanie. Lopes held the dying boy in her arms as they tried to save him, but he passed away the following day at the hospital.

Although the boy’s family and authorities saw the accident as an unforeseeable tragedy, not blaming Stephanie or Lopes, the singer still felt a deep responsibility to provide them closure. She covered all medical bills and funeral costs for the family, and in her documentary The Last Days of Left Eye, she is even shown choosing a casket for the boy.

However, the story takes an even more haunting turn. Lopes had previously admitted to feeling a “spirit” following her, and after the accident with the boy, she became fixated on the fact that his last name, Lopez, was almost identical to hers. She believed the spirit had made a mistake by taking the boy’s life instead of hers. Tragically, this premonition seemed to come true when, just two weeks later, she died in a car accident where she was the only one who lost her life.

Today, Lisa Lopes’ grave can be visited at Hillandale Memorial Gardens. Engraved on her casket are the lyrics to her part in “Waterfalls”: “Dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you.”