Lou Pearlman, the disgraced impresario behind the Backstreet Boys and 'NSYNC who was serving out a 25-year prison term after being convicted of running a half-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme in 2008, died Friday night, multiple sources confirm to Billboard. He was 62.
'NSYNC member Lance Bass tweeted word of the news on Saturday, August 20, writing, "He might not have been a stand up businessman, but I wouldn't be doing what I love today without his influence."
On the back of those boy bands’ success, Pearlman turned his Trans Continental businesses into a sprawling empire in the 1990s. But it was all built on fraud, and he was ultimately sued by every act he represented except one.
His groups dominated the charts during the 1990s: Backstreet Boys landed six Top 10 singles in the Hot 100 and a whopping nine albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, with both Millennium and Black & White hitting No. 1 (albeit after the group split from Pearlman). 'NSYNC had six Top 10 singles on the Hot 100 and landed four albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, although the two of them that reached No. 1 -- No Strings Attached and Celebrity -- were both released after the split. His next most popular act, O-Town, had a single and an album in the Top 10.
Lou Pearlman Clings to His Boy-Band Dreams: The First Prison Interview
But both before and after his fall, rumors were rampant about Pearlman’s relationships with some of the male groups on his roster. "We would hear things, for sure," 'NSYNC's Lance Bass told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. "He would always have young boy limo drivers for Trans Continental Records. Those limo drivers would always be put into different boy bands. Then I'd hear rumors that he would molest the boys before they would even get into the groups. I don't know how much of that is true, but to me, where there's smoke, there's fire." Pearlman denied any inappropriate relations.