Brian “Brizz” Gillis, the co-founder of the 1990s boy band LFO, died on Wednesday, March 29. His former band member Brad Fischetti shared the news on LFO’s official Facebook page on Thursday. He was 47.

Gillis is the third LFO member to die: In 2010, Rich Cronin died aged 36 after a stroke while fighting leukemia, and Devin Lima died at 41 of adrenal cancer in 2018.

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Who was Brian Gillis?

Gillis launched the group as Lyte Funkie Ones in 1995 with the late Rich Cronin and connected with Fischetti in Orlando in 1996, where they were signed to Lou Pearlman’s Transcontinental Records. The band got moderate success in Europe and the US in 1997 and 1998.

The band’s pop-rap song Summer Girls became their biggest hit. The song helped to catapult their 1999 album LFO, which also included hit single Girl on TV to No. 21 on the Billboard 200.

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The group went on tour in the following years, opening for Britney Spears while their debut continued to climb the charts. Gillis left the band in the late 1990s to pursue his individual career and was replaced by Boston-area singer Devin Lima.

“Every story is made up of chapters. Some develop naturally. Some you have to cut up in your mind,” Fischetti wrote with the photo of Gillis he shared on Instagram. “The first two chapters of the LFO story lost a main character yesterday. Brian ‘Brizz’ Gillis passed away,” he said.

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Fischetti informed that he does not have details about what led to his friend’s death and acknowledged it “wouldn’t be his place to share them if he did”. “I am really struggling to process this tragic loss,” he added.

Gillis had an estimated net worth of $2 million.