Aaliyah’s Former Dancer Says the ‘Planes Felt Sketchy’ in Moments Leading Up to Singer’s Death

Lesley Nicole, a former backup dancer for Aaliyah, remembers feeling “a way” about flying to the Bahamas before the singer’s untimely death.

On a recent episode of Shawn Stockman’s On That Note podcast, the Brooklyn-bred dancer recalled how Fatima Robinson, Aaliyah’s then-main choreographer, brought her in for two of the R&B star’s music videos.

Around the five-minute mark in the video linked above, Nicole shared she filmed the visuals for “More Than a Woman” in Miami before she and Aaliyah’s crew traveled to the Bahamas for “Rock the Boat.”

“We [the dancers] said, ‘All of this for an eight-count?’ Like, the planes felt sketchy because they were tiny smaller planes,” Nicole said of the 15-passenger aircraft flying to the Bahamas. “Walking on the tarmac to these small planes to get us to [the] Bahamas, something just was just, like, mmm. And I'm fearless when it comes to flying, I'm not one of those, ‘I'm nervous to fly,’ so I definitely felt a way because the plane just was like, ‘Oh, this is a tiny, tiny plane.’”

“But I said my prayers, I think I had a stuffed animal with me, like a good luck charm. And we got there with no problems, so it was great and we were just happy to be there,” she added.

Once in the Bahamas, Nicole recounted the team rehearsing and preparing for the shoot before a 4 a.m. call time the following day. Aaliyah, along with the dancers, spent the video shoot dancing on a moving catamaran under extreme heat and their feet raw from it all.

After wrapping the video, Nicole said director Hype Williams suggested staying an extra night to relax, but Aaliyah was “adamant” to get back to New York.

Nicole and others, including Robinson, stayed behind and shared a moment that they, in hindsight, view as a tribute to the singer.

“While we're on the boat, usually when you play a song a million times on a video, you're over it. You don't want to hear it again. Crew played [‘Rock the Boat’] again. And we all got up and we danced, like really danced,” Nicole reminisced. “Not even just the routines, we also played this Brazilian song and we were just—it almost felt like a tribute.”

She continued, “And if the timing of that is correct, I almost feel like that's when she might have been transitioning. Because we had a journey to get back to this dock and … there's no more skin on the bottom of my feet and I'm still dancing. We were just so proud of the work that everybody had put in, the crew members, everybody was phenomenal.”

When the remaining crew members returned to their hotel after a long drive, they were met with grief.

“As we pull up to the hotel, people are running out and they're crying and they're like, ‘What happened?’ They're bawling, dropping down to the floor,” she said.

“We're like, ‘Wait, did we miss something?’ And they were like, ‘Aaliyah's plane crashed.’ Like, ‘What are you talking about? That's impossible. We just left her.’ And they explained what had happened and we were just devastated. Completely devastated. The world was devastated,” she added.

Nicole then revealed Robinson was tasked with identifying Aaliyah’s body, while the remaining crew members were at the hotel and afraid to fly back on the small aircraft. 

However, Lenny Kravitz, a close friend of Robinson’s, came to the rescue.

“Thank you, Lenny Kravitz. I've never gotten a chance to personally thank him,” said Nicole. “He's friends with Fatima, and he actually lent his jet—or he had access to a private plane, and he sent his private plane to get us back.”

Aaliyah and eight others died on Aug. 25, 2001 after their charter plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas to the Miami suburb of Opa-locka, according to Billboard. Aaliyah was 22 years old at the time of her passing.

“Aaliyah's temperament was always super chill, cool. She just felt like a sister. She was never pretentious, ever. Like, no matter what kind of stress she was under, she was the coolest. Always down, crack a joke—she was silly,” Nicole said. 

“She was an angel, an angel on earth. She really was. She had a different energy than most. And you definitely felt safe and you felt a lot of love when you were around her,” she added.