Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia and graduated from Benjamin Elijah Mays High School in 1989.

[3][4][5] Thomas, who had been raised by her mother, later allowed the Sally Jessy Raphael television talk show to air footage of her meeting her father for the first time in 1996, when she was 25.

[9] In the spring of 1995, Thomas appeared and participated in the track "Freedom (Theme from Panther)" first appeared on the soundtrack to Melvin Van Peebles' movie Panther as TLC, along with SWV, Xscape, En Vogue, Jade, Brownstone and others.

Since the death of group member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes in April 2002, Thomas and Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins have occasionally performed as a duo.

Actress and singer Keke Palmer portrayed Thomas in CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story.

In 2006, it was reported that she had signed with Akon's record label Konvict Muzik and that her debut album would be released the following year, but this never came to fruition.

[16] In January 2016, she released the single "Body", which served to promote her fitness workout campaign.

In 2000, she was featured in the made-for-television movies A Diva's Christmas Carol and Love Song (with close friend Monica), and in the film Snow Day.

[25] In 2001, Thomas began dating Usher, after she starred in his music videos for "U Remind Me", "U Got It Bad", and "U Don't Have to Call".

For the music video of the song, "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg" Thomas and her band members wore condoms on their clothing.

The organization is an Atlanta-based program targeted at helping girls between the ages of 13 and 17 build healthy levels of self-esteem.

In response, Thomas created a petition through change.org to get the article deleted from the site and to stop staff members from gossiping about minors entirely.