Lance Bass remembers *NSYNC making him famous — but “not rich.”
The former boy band member said on Wednesday’s episode of “The Jess Cagle Show,” that *NSYNC opened doors and left him with lifelong memories, but now-late manager Lou Pearlman essentially robbed the band members blind.
“The worst thing is people thinking that we were rich, ’cause we were not,” he told Cagle. “Lou took all our money. We were famous, but we were not rich. I made way more money after *NSYNC than I did during *NSYNC. I mean, he really took the majority of all our stuff.”
Pearlman, the boy band mastermind behind *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, was sued by members of both bands and was sentenced in 2008 to 25 years imprisonment in a $300 million Ponzi scheme. He died in prison of cardiac arrest about a third into his sentence.
Bass previously recalled getting his first check from Pearlman after two years of touring and album promotion. He said in “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story” that the $10,000 payment “didn’t even touch minimum wage.” He couldn’t even afford his apartment during a time when *NSYNC reigned as “the biggest band in the world,” he told ABC’s “20/20” in 2019.
Still, Bass recalled his time as a young superstar fondly.
“To do that with those guys, it was incredible,” Bass said Wednesday. “And you had some of the best experiences ever. I mean, obviously it changed my life, led me to so many things I wanted to do in life. Moments like performing with Aerosmith at the Super Bowl halftime show, my favorite band.”
Bass also hailed his bandmates — Chris Kirkpatrick, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone and JC Chasez — who made for “a great family unit” and kept him grounded.
*NSYNC went on an indefinite hiatus in 2002 and reunites only for landmark occasions. Bass has written a New York Times bestselling autobiography, invested in a West Hollywood bar and formed a music management company.
“The work ethic I got from *NSYNC, I cherish,” Bass told Cagle.