Sister 2 Sister Magazine Tribute (Reigndrop Interview) (2002)

(Reigndrop Lopes and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes at the 2000 Soul Train Music Awards)

*Warning: This interview could be seen as deeply emotional and possibly too graphic. Be advised.*

-I stayed after Lisa's private interment to meet the family during the repast. None of the celebrities stayed for the repast except Tionne. Tionne's uncle is married to Wanda Lopes-Coleman, so Tionne is really family. Andre Rison didn't stay for the repast either. While there, I met Lisa's younger sister, Raina Lopes, who is a fitness expert. Raina was in Honduras with her boyfriend, James Williams, and she was in the car with Lisa when the accident happened. Miss Raina, who is cute as a button, sustained a hairline fracture in her leg and she suffered body and face bruises.Here's Raina's story. She's a brave sister. And I mean that both ways.-

Jamie: Hi, little precious. How is my little baby doing?

Raina: I'm ok.

Jamie: Where are you? Still down in Atlanta?

Raina: Yeah.

Jamie: Who's the oldest, you or your brother, Ronald?

Raina: Ronald is.

Jamie: Now what were you doing in Honduras?

Raina: I was helping with [Egypt]. I am a personal fitness trainer. I was helping with that as well as fasting.

Jamie: Had you been down to Honduras before?

Raina: Yes. I was down there one time before.

Jamie: Did you like it down there?

Raina: Yes, I loved it down there.

Jamie: So you kinda fell in love with it like Lisa did?

Raina: Yes.

Jamie: Wasn't it dangerous down there? Guns and crime? They said that there are drug dealers and that your house could be robbed and carjackings and all that stuff happens down there. They said that the United States didn't want citizens going there.

Raina: I think that is just media hype because as many years as Lisa has been down there, she has never seen any of that. They do have a high crime theft rate and outside of every building that has anything to do with shopping or anything dealing with money, they have armed guards with shotguns standing outside of everywhere. Usually, if you have a nice or okay house, you have a 24-hour security to watch it. I don't think it is as hyped as the media makes it seem.

Jamie: Lisa's holistic doctor down there, Dr. Sebi, was on the radio in Atlanta saying that Lisa had bought a lot of property there behind his camp and that she signed it over to him.

Raina: I don't know. I know that she bought a lot, but I don't know if she signed it over to him. She was gonna build a camp for kids to fly in from other countries. She was going to build like a rec center for the kids of Honduras. She was going to put a house on it. She was going to do a lot of stuff because she bought a lot of land.

Jamie: Was Lisa planning on living there forever?

Raina: Yeah. I think that she told Ronald that she was thinking about moving down there.

Jamie: Would you have moved down there?

Raina: Yeah, I was going to move down there probably in like 10 yeras. I was going to think about moving down there.

Jamie: Now Sambo Creek, tell me about that and tell me why you all were going there. At first, I thought you all were going to a mall. Wasn't Egypt supposed to sing at the mall?

Raina: Yeah, they were, but Lisa said that they already had a previous engagement at Sambo Creek to shoot some footage there with the natives. She said that they couldn't do the mall thing because they already planned with the cameramen to go to Sambo Creek.

Jamie: Wasn't Stephanie still planning on you all going to the mall?

Raina: No, not when we left. Beforehand, yes she was. That was before she told Lisa about the mall. She and her boyfriend went to the mall and when they came back from the mall, they came in the kitchen and told us that somebody wanted them to sing at the mall. When she told Lisa, she told her that they already had something scheduled for that day.

Jamie: Okay. Now, describe your living arrangement for me, Raina. Were all of you living in one big house together or what?

Raina: No, they have huts.

Jamie: What were the huts made out of?

Raina: They are made out of mud. It doesn't look like mud. It looks like cement, but it's mud. They are square huts and in the huts, it is either a single or a double. It's one bed or two beds and you have a place to put your clothes. There is a table, a lamp, a bathroom with a shower, a tub, a sink and a toilet. There is one big kitchen area. It's like a building with a kitchen and dining area for you to eat.

Jamie: Are the huts connected to this one big area?

Raina: No, none of the huts are connected. They are probably about 10 feet apart from each other. Off to the side is a building with a kitchen in it. Nothing is connected.

(Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and Reigndrop Lopes back in their childhood)

Jamie: Are the huts in a row?

Raina: Yeah.

Jamie: Then, there is a kitchen that you walk to. Is it a communal kitchen?

Raina: Yes.

Jamie: Do they have different refrigerators in there or does everybody put their food in the same one?

Raina: They have cooks there that cook for you. They cook breakfast, lunch and if we want a third meal, we can cook it ourselves or eat anything that is left over from lunch.

Jamie: What would a normal day be like there?

Raina: We would wake up at 5 o'clock. We had yoga about 5:30 or 6:00 am. After yoga, some people went back to bed because the next thing wasn't until 9 o'clock, which was breakfast. Everyone went to the kitchen for breakfast. After that, depending on what we had scheduled, there may be an activity like kickball or some game. Ronald and me switched up on teaching classes. Ronald teaches martial arts and I teach more like body sculpting. There would be a class about 4:30 [in the afternoon], either my class or Ronald's. Then, dinner was right after that at about 6:00pm.

Jamie: Lisa was a great cook. Do you have any of her recipes? They said that she would cook this gingerbread without any sugar or flour.

Raina: I think she has recipes on her website, www.eyenetics.com.

Jamie: Where did she come up with that name?

Raina: Well, the "eye" is from LeftEye and "netics" probably came from the book [Dianetics] by L. Ron Hubbard.

Jamie: And where did she get LeftEye from?

Raina: Michael Bivins told her that her left eye was slanted more.

Jamie: I want to know what the day of the accident was like.

Raina: I think that Lisa left everybody sleep in. I don't think tha twe had the morning workout. I remember everyone going to the kitchen and eating breakfast. Ronald went into town with Stephanie and Kurt. I stayed back... and I am trying to remember what I did.

Jamie: Now why was Ronald in town?

Raina: Just riding with them to the mall and checking on what time they wanted the girls to perform because none of that was straight. This was the thing. The day before that, they said that they wanted them to sing at the mall, but they didn't say a day. They were just like tomorrow or the next day. They were supposed to go to the mall that day and find out when they wanted the girls to sing. When they came back and todl Lisa that they wanted them to sing that day, Lisa was saying that she already planned something else.

Jamie: Was Lisa like a bossy boss? You all looked at her like the leader, right?

Raina: Right.

Jamie: She paid to fly everybody down there?

Rana: Yes.

Jamie: She wasn't feeling any particular way? She didn't say anything special?

Raina: No, she stayed in her room most of that morning. I remember her coming out at lunch. That's when Stephanie and Kurt had got back and told her about the performance. From that point on until we left, everybody was getting ready to take pictures at Sambo Creek.

Jamie: What happened then? You all piled in the car?

Raina: Yes.

Jamie: Did Lisa normally drive?

Raina: No, she didn't.

Jamie: Well, who would normally drive?

Raina: The cameraman would drive that jeep because we had two. Stephanie and Kurt had the other jeep at the mall. They had left to go back to the mall to tell them that the girls couldn't perform.

Jamie: Was the SUV rented?

Raina: Yeah, we had just rented it the day before.

Jamie: Who is the photographer?

Raina: There were three cameramen. They were filming the whole time that we were down there. Initially, we were filming. Then the cameramen came about the 17th or the 18th [of April] and they started filming.

Jamie: Were they filming just for you all?

Raina: Yes.

Jamie: Tell me who was in the car.

Raina: Lisa was driving. Bryan Harris, who is one of the cameramen, was sitting up front with her. The group, Egypt, was behind them. The girls in the group were T'Mele, Sophia, Katrina and Joy. I was sitting on Sophia's lap. The seat behind that was the other two cameramen (Martin and Nas) and Alicia Cherry [nicknamed Phobia.]

Jamie: Did the other cameramen get hurt at all?

Raina: Yeah. Everybody got hurt, but because they are men and they are bigger, they didn't get hurt as much. Martin flew through the back window. He was cut up and had glass on his back. He was hurt, but he didn't have any broken bones. We started driving and the cameraman in the front was filming Lisa. The truck that was in front of us just stopped. A couple of people said that it was a banana truck.

Jamie: What kind of road were you on?

Raina: It's the only road. There is only one major road in Honduras. It is like a two-lane road with no lines. When the car in front of us stopped...

Jamie: About how fast were you going then?

Raina: Probably about 50 or 55. So when the truck stopped, Lisa went to swerve to the left. She had to swerve to not hit the truck because it just stopped. It seemed like it was going to be okay when she swerved, but then the car just went out of control. The truck was moving really fast. I think that the wheels locked. The only thing I can remember after that is closing my eyes and remembering every hit and being banged against the car as it was turning and flipping. Finally, it stopped.

Jamie: How many times do you think the car turned over?

Raina: I would say between four and five times.

Jamie: Was Lisa's window open?

Raina: Yes. Everybody's window was open because it was hot.

Jamie: Do you think that it was strange that she was the only one thrown from the car? Nobody had on seatbelts?

Raina: Well, she wasn't the only one thrown from the car. There were three other people that were thrown from the car. Everyone in the back was thrown. The three people in the back and Lisa.

Jamie: And you all couldn't find Lisa for a while?

Raina: For a while. And then somebody spotted her. I don't know if it was Bryan or Phobia.

Jamie: Did you all fall down a hill or something?

Raina: No, it's not a hill. The sides of the road is like ditches. It just goes down on the sides and it's just trees and stuff.

Jamie: So where was she? Was she further up? Was she thrown out before you all landed or what?

Raina: I don't know when she was thrown out, but she was not real close to the car. She was probably between three and five yards from the car.

Jamie: Up above it?

Raina: No, behind it. Right before you get to it, if you are coming the way that we were driving.

Jamie: Was she by a tree or a rock?

Raina: No, just grass. The damage was probably the impact of however she hit the ground. It looked to me like her neck was broken.

Jamie: What did you all do then?

Raina: Well, it was hard because the people looked Spanish. It was about 50 or 60 of them that stopped in the middle of the road. I know the most Spanish, but I don't know that much. I was trying to tell them to call the ambulance. They don't speak English, so I used the Spanish that I knew. I mentioned Dr. Sebi's name and everybody knows him. I told them to take me back to the village because we were like five minutes away. I was going to get Ronald because he was still back at the village.

(Photo from inside the car after the accident)

Jamie: You didn't know that Lisa had passed by that time?

Raina: Yeah, I did.

Jamie: Stephanie and them saw the accident on the way coming back, right?

Raina: Right. They saw the truck.

Jamie: Now who came and got what? Did they call the ambulance?

Raina: No. They may have, but it never came. When I came back and got Ronald, he and a few others put Lisa in the back of one of the natives' truck. Two trucks took us to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, the only thing that passed us was a fire truck. The hospital was like 30 minutes from where we were.

Jamie: WHere were the other people?

Raina: They were right there on the side of the road.

Jamie: So everybody was just lying there on the side of the road in pain?

Raina: Or walking around bloody.

Jamie: And Lisa was just laying there?

Raina: When I got back, Lisa was still in the grass. The other girls were on the other side of the street sitting on the curb. Bryan and Phobia were on the other side with Lisa. That is when they had put Lisa in one truck with a couple of people. Then the other girls were in the truck in front of us.

Jamie: Lord have mercy! And you all just had to take Lisa to the hospital then? How were you holding up? You and Ron had to be very strong to get through this and not break down. What were you thinking?

Raina: I don't know. I mean, I guess I was just in shock.

Jamie: Your mom mentioned that she had seen this vision some time ago. Had she shared that vision with you?

Raina: No. She started to mention it a couple of times but we always got distracted because a lot of people have been around.

Jamie: Had she mentioned it before the accident?

Raina: No, just recently. I don't think she told anybody.

Jamie: Someone told me that there was a calm over Lisa's fave while the accident was happening. Did you see that?

Raina: Well, I was watching her the whole time. First, when she made the first swerve, it seemed that we were going to continue to go straight and she was calm. When the truck started going back and forth, I could see in her eyes that she knew something was about to happen. She couldn't get control over the car again. She knew that it was out of her hands.

(Reigndrop Lopes and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes as infants)