• Rozanda ‘Chilli’ Thomas is 1/3 of 90s girl group sensation ‘TLC’.
• She’s also a reality TV star.
• Chilli has had several high-profile relationships with famous men, including Usher.
• She’s currently dating Matthew Lawrence.

Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas is a force to be reckoned with. As 1/3 of the 90s sensation TLC, alongside Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, she rose to fame with hits like “Waterfalls,” “No Scrubs,” and “Creep.” At the height of their fame, the talented trio garnered an American Music Award, multiple Grammys, and a slew of MTV Video Music Awards. Their widely publicized bankruptcy, and Lisa’s tragic death in a car crash on April 25, 2002, presented challenges and grief for Chilli, but she went on to release a couple of solo singles and even appeared in the music video for Tyrese‘s hit “Nothing On You.”

She also starred in two seasons of a VH1 reality series based on her life called What Chilli Wants. Behind the scenes — and sometimes even in full public view — she also had a series of high-profile relationships with famous men. In fact, she’s currently dating actor Matthew Lawrence.  Read on to find out about all of Rozanda ‘Chilli’ Thomas’ most serious romantic relationships.

Dallas Austin

According to The US Sun, Chilli dated TLC producer Dallas Austin throughout most of the 1990s — and he produced some of the group’s most memorable hits. During an episode of her reality series, she opened up about an abortion she had while with Dallas. She also admitted to deeply regretting the decision, and getting pregnant again with Dallas. They ended up  having a son together.

“I was 20 and my career hadn’t really started, [and I got pregnant],” she said during the show, per Buzzfeed. “How do I do all that? How do I be a mommy? [The abortion] messed me up — it broke my spirit. I felt like I became not my strong self anymore. I felt like I gave in and broke [down] to what someone else wanted. I cried almost every day for nine years. And then I was caught up — I had to have a baby. I had to fix it, and the only way I could fix it was with him [Dallas]. I could only have this baby with him because the baby I didn’t have was with him. As time went on, I was able to break away from the relationship because I knew that he was always being true to himself — I was not. I was compromising who I was as a person to please this person, and I think so many women do that.”

The duo welcomed their son Tron Austin on June 2, 1997. Not long afterwards, they went their separate ways.

Usher

R&B star Usher was Chilli’s next serious relationship. Both were members of the LaFace Record Group, and the romance was natural. They began dating in 2001, and in the subsequent two years, she appeared in several of his iconic music videos, including U Don’t Have to Call, U Remind Me, and U Got It Bad.

They split in 2003, but she’s spoken out multiple times about how hard it was to get him out of her system, even admitted they were still in contact when he got married to now ex-wife Tameka Foster. “I love hard,” she told PEOPLE in June of 2023. “I was like, ‘God, why can’t I get over this? He couldn’t either.”

After it was over, she admitted, “I even stopped dating. Because before that I thought if I met the right guy during that time that I wasn’t over [Usher] it wouldn’t work. I would never want to straddle the fence.” She also revealed that they had “working chemistry.” “We definitely had some chemistry,” she explained. “But working chemistry does not mean it works in your personal life. If we were working, it was great. But outside of that, we’re so different.”

In a 2013 interview, she recalled their breakup as well. “We broke up because I guess it was that time or whatever…he was that real love for me,” she confessed to Us Weekly at the time. “In any relationship, even when it came to my relationship with Usher, when it was time to make a move, I had to do that. I don’t care how much my heart was hurting, sometimes you’re just supposed to be with people for a reason and it’s not always a lifetime. Even if you want it to be, it just doesn’t work out that way.”