The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were more than just the guys who taught you the meaning of the word “sexual” and some sweet dance moves.
They were also the victims of a conman: their manager, a former blimp salesman named Lou Pearlman, who ran “one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in US history”, and later bragged from prison about being smarter than notorious Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff.
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, a project driven hugely by the involvement of NSYNC’s Lance Bass, just premiered at South By Southwest. It delves into how big Pearlman’s scam actually was, and how two of the biggest groups of the 90s were its victims.
While both acts sold millions of records, tickets and licensed products, Pearlman was funnelling huge chunks of that cash into his own pockets.
An earlier documentary on the Backstreet Boys detailed how the band members actually only received US$300,000 for their work between 1993 and 1997 – $12,000 each per year, well below minimum wage.
Pearlman died in prison in 2016, after being sentenced to 25 years for stealing millions of dollars.
I hope he found some peace. God bless and RIP, Lou Pearlman.
— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) August 21, 2016
“Lance’s drive on that was really inspiring — to actually want to tell the real story,” director Justin Kunkel told the crowd at the premiere.
“[Pearlman] was hugely influential in the music industry and changed music in a lot of ways. He was integral to these guys’ career — but also, he’s got a lot of warts, and there’s a lot of problems with the things he did in his life. I think it was really interesting to tell that.”
The documentary features Bass as well as his bandmates JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick, plus AJ from BSB, Aaron Carter, and members of O-Town. Kunkel said he hopes it will make people feel more able to come forward about financial abuses, the way survivors of other kinds of abuse have begun to.
“I think that that’s an important story to get out there so that, number one, people feel comfortable bringing that to light when it’s happening to them,” Kunkel said at SXSW. “And number two, that the world knows and that everybody understands and reckons with what it is.”
You can’t take away that NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and a lot of his bands brought a lot of joy into the world — they still are.
“But simultaneously, he also ran one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history. So there’s two different sides to him, and we wanted the make sure that we told that story.”
Sorry about your ruined childhoods, folks.
You can watch some tantalising clips right now, and the full doco will be available on YouTube Originals.