Lou Pearlman would ask NSYNC to show him their abs

NSYNC was just one of the many boy bands who were conned by former manager Lou Pearlman, the subject of Netflix’s new docuseries Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam.

Member Chris Kirkpatrick even appears, explaining the odd way that Pearlman interacted with the ensemble that also includes Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, and Justin Timberlake.

“He’d always talk [about], ‘I need you guys in shape, whatever,'” Kirkpatrick says. “Started coming up, grabbing our arms. Then it was like, ‘Well, let me see your abs.’ You’re like a 50-, 60-year-old guy — that’s too far.”

Pearlman, who also represented the Backstreet Boys, LFO, O-Town, Innosense, and others, was convicted of money laundering in 2008. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and died of a heart attack there in 2016.

Kirkpatrick’s bandmate Bass produced his own documentary about Pearlman in 2019, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, in which he recalled realizing money was being handled improperly when Pearlman gave them their first paychecks after two years of work. The band had hit record sales of 10 million.

“I open up the envelope, I see the check, and oh, my gosh, my heart sunk,” Bass says, per USA Today. “I couldn’t believe the number I was looking at. The check was $10,000. And not to sound ungrateful…but when you compare it to how many hours we had put into this group for years, it didn’t even touch minimum wage. At all.”

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Dirty Pop features Mandy Newland, Pearlman’s former assistant, who confirmed he was “touchy-feely with the guys, the younger ones, especially.”

She said that she didn’t think his behavior was too extreme.

As for Kirkpatrick and his bandmates, they performed live for the first time in more than a decade in March at a Timberlake concert at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. The set list included hits such as “It’s Gonna Be Me” and “Bye Bye Bye,” as well as “Paradise,” a new track they recorded for Timberlake’s latest.