Now that T-Boz, born Tionne Watkins, is home from the hospital following a medical emergency, she is addressing the misinformation that has spread surrounding the ordeal.
On Aug. 24, her band TLC announced she had “experienced sudden and severe nausea, vomiting and intense abdominal cramps” after a performance in Toledo, Ohio, two days prior.
Watkins was hospitalized and officially diagnosed with “abdominal blockage,” leading TLC to cancel and reschedule a few upcoming shows.
In the days since, rumors surrounding what led to the medical emergency have spiraled online. The chatter got so noisy on Aug. 28, that Watkins took to her Instagram to post a video demystifying the “ignorance.”
She kicked off the video thanking those who have been supportive for “all of the love.” Then, she quickly honed in on the rumor mill.
Despite the public being made aware, Watkins said, “I would have never put my business out there like that, but I guess because I missed shows, it had to be said, but I just don’t think it should have been so detailed ‘cause I don’t like people in my business — and I don’t like all this attention.”
The “Unpretty” singer noted that she has struggled with sickle cell anemia and typically keeps the “plenty” of times she’s dealt with complications private. She added that this recent emergency had nothing to do with the chronic blood disorder.
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She continued, “It had nothing to do with constipation. No, I’m not on Ozempic. Everybody and every celeb ain’t on Ozempic, and I just want to say the ignorance is just, like, disheartening to me.”
“People have died from what I just went through,” she explained. “This can happen to any woman that’s had a c-section or fibroid cysts or any abdominal surgery. It was scar tissue. It had nothing to do with what I ate. It had nothing to do with the inside of my intestines. It was the outside.”
She further explained that the blockage was caused when scar tissue from a 24-year-old previous surgery began to “hit each other” or become twisted around her intestines as they moved in the body.
“And it just blocked it. And that’s it,” she said, adding, “It’s very painful, and I wish this on no one.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, the majority of people who have some form of an abdominal procedure will develop scar tissue, also known as abdominal adhesions, and thus can be at risk of developing intestinal blockage. At the same time, Black women in America have higher rates of c-sections than any other racial group, making them potentially at even greater risk for what Watkins went through.
In her video, Watkins urged the public to “Stop associating everything that has to do with my name with sickle cell … I am Tionne Watkins. I just happen to have a disease that is not who I am and all that I am.”
She declared, “Everything that happens to me does not have to do with sickle cell.”
She wrapped the video, noting she’s “blessed and working again.”