Carmit Bachar remembers the last time she saw Aaliyah like it was yesterday. “I have this image in my mind of Aaliyah and her team on the yacht as they fatefully sailed away while we all waved and collectively shouted goodbye,” Bachar exclusively tells Us, looking back on the August 2001 shoot for the late singer’s “Rock the Boat” music video, in which she served as one of nine backup dancers. “At the time, it was just a goodbye. None of us could have known what it would come to mean.”
By that summer, Aaliyah had become one of music’s most promising and influential young artists. Hits like “Back & Forth” and “Try Again” had helped establish her as the Princess of R&B, while her sleek, futuristic sound and singular style set her apart from her contemporaries. The Brooklyn native and Detroit transplant had also successfully ventured into modeling and acting, becoming the face of Tommy Hilfiger and landing roles in Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned. She had even begun filming the role of Zee in two upcoming Matrix sequels. But music remained Aaliyah’s first love, and her self-titled third album — which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 following its July 17, 2001, release — was poised to propel the 22-year-old to even greater heights.
On August 23, Aaliyah traveled to the Bahamas to film the video for the album’s second single, “Rock the Boat,” with director Hype Williams. The camaraderie on and off set was palpable. “We had so much time together between shots and days of work and free time — riding around on little golf carts, going into the beautiful water, playing, rehearsing and shooting,” Bachar remembers. “It didn’t feel like a typical music video shoot. It felt like we were living our best lives and making magic at the same time.” Lesley Nicole Lewis, who also danced in the video’s now-iconic yacht scene, echoes, “We would create silly songs and joke about random things. It was pure joy.” Lewis adds that before Aaliyah departed, she told the dancers that she’d see them at their next rehearsals in New York, where they were preparing for upcoming tour dates. “I never ask artists for photos,” Lewis tells Us. “But I’m really glad we captured the moment that day.”
Aaliyah had been set to stay in the Bahamas until August 26, but after completing her parts of the video, she opted to leave a day early. At 6:50 p.m. on Aug. 25, she boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402B with seven members of her crew — family friend Keith Wallace, 49, bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41, hairstylists Anthony Dodd, 34, and Eric Forman, 29, makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32, Blackground Records exec Gina Smith, 30, and Virgin Records video production director Douglas Kratz, 28. Less than a minute after takeoff, the plane crashed 200 feet from the runway and burst into flames, killing Aaliyah and five others, including pilot Luis Antonio Morales, 30. The remaining three passengers died shortly afterward.
According to Aaliyah’s then-boyfriend, Damon “Dame” Dash, she’d expressed concern about the aircraft before boarding. “She texted me saying, ‘I don’t like the plane.’ I told her, ‘Don’t get on it.’ However, she said she had to do it for the video,” he tells Us. “She knew the plane wasn’t right, and she was always scared of planes.”
Lingering Questions
Aaliyah’s fear of flying was no secret. “Every single time, she was scared,” Dash says. “She always took a satin pillow with her. She called it her good-luck pillow.” So why did she board the plane that ultimately took her life? The answer remains unclear. Dash believes Aaliyah was eager to get home to him: “She said, ‘I am just going to do this video then come right back.’” Biographer Kathy Iandoli feels there could be more to it. In her 2021 book, Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah, eyewitness Kingsley Russell recalled working for his family’s transportation company on the island when he was 13. Russell claimed he heard Aaliyah say she did not want to board the plane and later saw a member of her team give her an unidentified pill after she complained of a headache. He said Aaliyah subsequently fell asleep and was carried aboard. “The problem with investigations when it comes to airborne situations is they’ll check the engine [to determine] why did it crash?” Iandoli says. “The real investigation is why did she get on the plane when she didn’t want to? … That’s the mystery that we’re left with.”
An investigation determined that the aircraft had been “substantially” overloaded with people and luggage, weighing more than 900 pounds over its limit, which threw off its center of gravity. Additionally, the National Transportation Safety Board learned that Morales had not been authorized to fly the plane and had falsified his flight history to get his license. (A toxicology report also found that Morales had cocaine and alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.)
In Mourning
Today, those closest to Aaliyah still can’t shake the loss. “It was unfathomable,” says Bachar, who went on to become a founding member of The Pussycat Dolls and recently released an acoustic video for her solo track “Keep on Smiling” with Operation Smile. “I remember dropping to my knees. It was this out-of-body experience. We had gone from the highest of highs — this incredible week, this beautiful island, making music and dancing and laughing — to suddenly realizing that the people we had just been with were gone.” Lewis was equally shattered. “It just didn’t feel real,” she reflects. “I felt lost. Never in my wildest dreams did I think such a thing could happen to someone I was in such close proximity to.”
Back in Los Angeles, Queen of the Damned director Michael Rymer was expecting Aaliyah to return that weekend. The two planned to have dinner on Sunday before she recorded additional dialogue for the film on Monday. “I found out on Saturday night that her plane had not made it out of the Bahamas,” he tells Us. “You just go into shock.”
Aaliyah’s family was left to navigate the painful loss. Her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against plane operator Blackhawk International Airways before the FAA shut down the company. (They reached a confidential settlement in 2003.) At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, her brother, Rashad Haughton, delivered a speech thanking fans for their support. “With every breath like it’s the last, with every blink like a freeze-frame of a precious moment, with every touch to record how we once were human, we are destined to be something more. Aaliyah, you have fulfilled that destiny,” he said, his voice breaking. “We are all truly happy to have been given a gift like you, Aaliyah.”
Carrying Her Legacy
In the weeks after Aaliyah’s death, her loved ones and record label went back and forth about releasing the “Rock the Boat” video. Williams believed it deserved to be seen. “Everyone put their heart and soul into the work, as we always do, with the intent that the world would enjoy it,” the director said at the time. “I know there’s a lot of pain involved, but that’s all the more reason people would appreciate what we’ve done.” The video ultimately premiered on BET on October 9 and later MTV, where it remained in heavy rotation.
“I [was] so moved by what Hype Williams created,” Bachar shares. “I don’t know how he did it after everything that transpired, but he did an incredible job. There’s that final shot of Aaliyah underwater. She’s swimming and swaying to the side, and her hair swoops around her, almost like a mermaid. It’s so angelic. Then she rises toward the surface and there’s this beautiful light above her. It looked like she was going up to heaven. I remember that moment making me cry, and it still gives me chills.”
Lewis knows the song’s choreography to this day. “I go over the routine quite a bit. I never want it to leave my body,” she tells Us. “When I’m out with my friends that danced for her, we hit the steps to always pay tribute and keep her memory alive in our bodies and hearts.”
Dash, meanwhile, considers Aaliyah his soulmate. “We are still together today. We’ll never not be together,” the Roc-A-Fella Records cofounder says. “If she were still with us and we were together as a team, we would be like Jay-Z and Beyoncé. I think she might be the most celebrated artist if she were still alive.”
Even though her life was cut short, Aaliyah’s influence spans generations. “These younger artists who are inspired by her — whether it be how she dressed, what she sang about or the production — they’re really a chip off the block,” Iandoli notes. “The music she was making was so futuristic that she was 25 years ahead of her time.”
For Bachar, carrying Aaliyah’s legacy remains personal. “She’s been a source of strength for the past 25 years. People can still feel her spirit,” she says. “She was just about to explode as a superstar, not only as a musician but as an actress too. Who knows what she would have accomplished in this lifetime? Baby Girl was just getting started.”
