May 2004 :
"Do you believe it was fair for Troy and Torii to jump Ava like that?"
Leann laughed, shaking her head. "First of all, Andrea, they didn't 'jump' her. And though they could have, they never actually fought for, with, or because of one another. There were times when one could have stopped the other, but ..." She shrugged. "Anyway, they didn't jump Ava. Now, did they have a right to beat her ass separately, on the same day... literally ten minutes apart? Did Torii have a right to catch her ass slippin' a few days later and beat her ass again, for general purposes? Fucking right."
"And you, why'd you fight her?"
"See, all the shit she said about me was true. I was upset because she had no right to put me on blast. Me going in and out of rehabs, that was MY business, some shit she only knew because each time I got sent back, they were all rooting for me to come out completely done with drugs. And the only reason she beat me was because I was inebriated. But what she said about them girls-" Leann shook her head. "Come on now, Troy had her little attitudes. And sometimes she could come off prissy or as if she thought she was better than someone else, and it wasn't intentional. She might have acted or talked like she was a little fast, but that girl wasn't no big ass hoe like Ava tried to make her out to be. Troy has been in love with the same dude since 1995, and that was before they even made the shit official, so I don't know where Ava even got that big ass lie from. That girl was a homebody, she didn't even like to go to clubs for appearances that we got paid for, we had to drag her. She was never anywhere without Marliss, unless he just happened to be out touring, and then she chose to stay home if she could. Once she turned seventeen, she'd go with him if she was able to. On top of that, she was sick; sometimes to the point where she could hardly get out of bed or move a single finger. Majority of her free time, after the very first time she passed out was spent in hospitals or in bed... with Marliss watching her to make sure she did what she had to do to get better. And banging out the band? Those were grown ass men, with wives and kids, and Ava was the only homewrecker, so she was talking about her damn self and naming Troy as a cover-up."
"What about what she said in regards to Torii?"
"What about it? I was the drug addict, so what reason did anyone really have to believe that it was Torii. Only reason people thought it COULD be true was because it was finally 'dirt' on one of the two good girls in the group. Same with them feeling that Troy COULD have been sleeping with everybody. Troy and Torii never caused problems and that annoyed media so they hopped on whatever 'dirt' came out about them. As for Torii, the girl was gifted, knew that she had shit to do. She had plans beyond singing, and she wasn't about to mess that up."
Leann sighed again. "Look, here's something exclusive, something no one has ever heard or found out. Even through all of our fighting and bickering, even with her constantly saying fuck me and my attitude, after I continuously did stupid shit to her... Torii was there for me. Coaching me through, helping me through. I fucked myself up so bad, so quickly, had so many demons; from feeling regret over not helping my father, and not getting close to him again soon enough. Scared of dying like he died, scared of messing over my brother or dying when he needed me. Man, Andrea, I OD'd once. I was home alone and for some reason, Torii took it upon herself to push her feelings aside and come and find me because Brandy wanted to see me. Brandy had this feeling I had relapsed again, and she was right. Nobody had keys to my house except for Torii and Troy." She paused for a moment, hating that she was about to start crying. "Torii found me in my bathroom, and I was almost gone. This girl, she ain't wait for no ambulance, she ain't wait for someone to sit and decide if it was worth saving my life. She took it upon herself and she brought me to the hospital, on her own. She sat with me, prayed over me, cried for me, prayed some more. And when I pulled through, she was sitting right there. The only one, aside from my brother." She sighed. "And even after I went back to fucking up and messing over her and messing up our chances as a group... she still found reason after reason to check on me. Because she saw what that shit was doing to me. So why, what reason would she have had to get on it herself? She was smarter than that, had more to live for. Ava was full of shit, and dead ass wrong for putting it out there that she was a crack and coke fiend. So yeah, she deserved to get her ass whooped, and I'm glad Torii did it a grand total of four times before she finally 'got over' what was said and done."
"If Torii was still there for you, why aren't you on speaking terms now?"
"Because, people get fed up with dealing with the same shit, no matter how nice they are." Leann shrugged, clearing her throat. "Even knowing she was there, I still felt like I felt before; like I had nobody. And that's how I continued acting, in spite of her trying her best to help me when she felt the need to. She ain't gotta ever talk to me again, I don't blame her. I have a strong 'fuck it' and 'I don't care' attitude, and that's what's still with me right now. If she wants to be cool, fine. If not, fine. I simply do not care."
Andrea nodded, jotting down her notes before she moved on to the next question. "Okay, so you all take the hiatus in what June of 1998?"
"Somewhere around that time, yeah. June or July."
"What happened? Troy said she told Brandy to have them look for a replacement. I mean, obviously, there was a bit of a regroup between you all somewhere. But during that hiatus, was there ever any changes?"
Leann nodded. "MCA still wanted that third album, because it had already been promised. They spent money on it; paid for sessions, promotion, tours and all that other stuff and they wanted to recoup their money before they cut Fly Girl loose altogether. I think, at that point, whether we had another number one album again or not, something was going to go down. Either we were going to become a secondary or third option group for the label, or they were going to drop and move us. Their thinking was... Troy wants to leave, Ava's causing problems, so let's finish the album, find someone who sounds nearly identical to Troy, and move on. Ava's replacement could lip-sync during the live shows, and Torii and I would just have to be cool and deal with it because the option to leave by choice was only for two. She and I would have to be kicked out."
"That's dumb."
"Very, but early on, that was how Chauncey assured himself that he'd always have some form of Fly Girl going. His assumption was, in the end, Troy and Torii would both leave and he could replace them with two more powerhouses, while collecting off of their solo endeavors. OR, he could kick Ava and I out and replace us with other irrelevant backup to appease Troy and Torii if they got diva attitudes. Either way, there was going to always be some incarnation of Fly Girl, and he was always going to make money off it. If we wanted to change that contract, much like the small struggle it took to get rid of Chauncey, we would have to deal with court and lawyers, and time away from singing and touring which meant huge loss of money."
"So what happened?"
"They tried to find another Troy and another Ava, while giving Torii and I solo projects and appearances on TV on the side. There's a million other versions of Ava. Just like there's a million other versions of me. There might be another Torii or two. But, the struggle to find another Troy... it was real."
"Difficult?"
"Impossible. There is no other singer like Troy. She's like Whitney, and Ella, and even someone as young as us, like Brandy. She's in a class of her own, literally. And her being that special and having always been the glue for our specific group, for our voices to fit and flow around, it wouldn't have worked out. And, she always felt we were hyping her up, to boost her confidence because she always had a fear of singing. She loved it, but sometimes it scared her. Nah, that girl could sing her face off if she really wanted to; slipping in and out of registers, up and down octaves, imitating artists with the most unique tones and voices and styles of singing. And doing the shit as if it was simple. At the snap of a finger she could go from singing like Phyllis Hyman to sounding like a black Judy Garland, to singing like Anita or Toni, to singing like Minnie Riperton or Denise Williams. She could sound like Diana Ross with an airy tone, Claudette Robinson from The Miracles where you hear her just enough in the background and it's a sweet and soft tone. The girl could sound like a male artist if she really wanted to. Shit, play some Temptations for her and bet she won't sound just like Eddie Kendricks if you cut the music off and catch her singing a capella, and those were in her moments of joking around. When her sister was sick during one recording, Troy went in and did Torii's verse. To this day, people think they're hearing Torii, and Torii sings the verse live. But on the album, it's Troy. The girl could just do all of these amazing things with her voice. Riffs, runs, scatting... and yet... what fans got on those albums, that wasn't even the half of it."
"You're saying Troy held back, and y'all were still highly successful?"
"I'm saying, if you don't know the magnitude of Troy's talent alone, and why people were so damn hard up for her to go solo, then you caught the wrong live shows."
Leann cleared her throat. "Anyway, no one wanted to step into Ava's shadow, to be looked at as another possible troublemaker. And, they couldn't find a replacement for Troy. And they begged and pleaded for her to come back. We were only supposed to be gone until March of '99."
"I think I remember. Fans started doing Where Are They Now and Missing Artist type campaigns behind y'all, because you promised us you'd be back in 1999. Ava said 1999."
"Right."
"So, what happened?"
"We lost Troy. She meant that she was done, and she didn't want to sing at all. Every now and then, fans would catch her singing background on Marliss' stuff, and that pissed y'all off. No one could get in contact with her, except for Torii, and Torii wasn't telling anybody a damn thing when it came to her sister. She wasn't living in California, so it wasn't like they could pop up at her apartment, and nobody was crazy enough to drop in on Marliss because he had these big ass, wild ass dogs that would bite anybody they didn't see regularly. The executives at MCA had to beg and plead to get Troy back to finish the third album. And they were thinking she was going to pay them back for all the time lost and things they had to work around, but they still haven't seen a penny. They don't bother her about it either, because when we got her back finally, they knew she was worth all of the trouble and stress. Had it been me or Ava, they would've said fuck it and moved on swiftly. But they waited that out. June or July of 1998, all the way to April of 2000, they waited for Troy to come back. Matter of fact, it was her twentieth birthday, and they had this huge party to celebrate."
"Were things different, better?"
Leann sighed, thinking about it for a few moments. "Yeah, things were very different. For starters, we still weren't friends. There was no going back to being friends. Like I said, Torii was still there when she felt the absolute need to be there for me, and that wasn't often. Troy was cordial, professional, and she didn't bash or talk down or speak badly of anybody. We rebuilt a little bit of camaraderie, but, it wasn't a sisterhood anymore. No real bond, just business and tolerance. Troy, she wasn't naïve anymore. She wasn't as afraid anymore; not to be herself, not to sing, or be alone. Torii, even more vocal than before. Very opinionated, very real in her approach, and a very deep no bullshit attitude. Ava, Ava was just Ava, and that's the nicest thing I have to say about her."
"And what about you?"
Leann shrugged her shoulders before sitting back in her seat. "Couldn't shake my demons fast enough, and I'll leave it at that."