Lou Pearlman, founder of Trans Continental Records, introduced the world to the beautiful and vocally balanced boy bands featured on posters that adorned our bedroom walls in the '90s and early 2000s. The ones who put a chokehold on our tween hearts with the poppy tracks in which they begged us to “Quit Playing Games.”
Pearlman also put the harm in harmonizing, swindling about 2,000 people out of about $300 million with America’s longest-running Ponzi scheme, which spanned more than 30 years, according to a new docuseries.
“There would be no 'N Sync, there would be no Backstreet Boys without Lou, period,” AJ McLean, a member of the Boys, acknowledges in Netflix's "Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam" (now streaming). “But some of us still have wounds that have never healed, that may never heal.”
McLean’s bandmate Howie Dorough also reflects on his relationship with Pearlman − affectionately referred to as “Big Poppa” − in the three-part docuseries. 'N Sync’s Chris Kirkpatrick considers Pearlman, who died in 2016 while serving a 25-year sentence, a snake. Pearlman’s friends and former employees, also interviewed, remember him more fondly.
Chet Hankssays he's slayed the ‘monster’: ‘I'm very much at peace’
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Pearlman also helped launch the careers of Aaron Carter, LFO, O-Town, Brooke Hogan and Natural, which included Michael Johnson, an executive producer of the docuseries.
“I always say it's as if Lou was Clive Davis, Howard Hughes, Frank Abagnale Jr. and Bernie Madoff, all in one person,” Johnson, who worked on the film for 15 years, tells USA TODAY in an interview. Johnson, 41, signed with Pearlman in 1999 at 15 after forming a group with his friends. Although Natural broke up in 2004, Johnson continued a business relationship with Pearlman. Johnson had been traveling with Pearlman shortly before the con man's arrest in 2007, paying for the pair's international travel on his credit card at Pearlman's request without realizing he was a fugitive.
Here are the biggest revelations from the documentary and a conversation with Johnson.
The Backstreet Boys was formed in 1993, and 'N Sync was established in 1995. In 1998, Pearlman presented 'N Sync with their first check, Kirkpatrick says. The former waiter looked excitedly at the $10,000 payment.
But “the smart one named JC said, ‘How much do you make in a year at Outback?’” Kirkpatrick recalls. The group lawyered up and realized “there’s something incredibly wrong. Why are we still working our butts off for nickels and dimes, and Lou’s making millions?”
Backstreet Boys filed a lawsuit against Pearlman in 1998. ABC News reported the group had made only $300,000 since their debut while Pearlman pocketed $10 million.
“We were blindsided to Lou being the sixth member of the group,” McLean says. “You’re going to make your management commission, but you’re also going to make exactly how much the five of us make, and you’re not out there doing what we’re doing.”
'N Sync members sued to get out of their contact, but the 10 members of the two bands ended up paying Pearlman a $64 million settlement, Pearlman’s attorney Cheney Mason says.
“It's hard to say that it wasn't fair, because everybody signed those contracts," Johnson says, conceding they were "heavy-handed on his side.”
Joey Fatone, AJ McLeanpromise joint tour will show 'magic of *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys'
In “Dirty Pop,” Johnson says Pearlman financed Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync using insurance claim money he received for his blimps that had crashed. (Pearlman’s diversified business interests also included airplanes and steakhouses.) When that money ran out, Pearlman made a terrible deal with BMG, the former record label for both bands, giving him "a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction" of what the bands made, Johnson says.
Pearlman’s money came from an Employee Investment Savings Account, sold through his company, Trans Continental Airlines, that promised contributors high rates of return.
Pearlman failed to pay legal fees to Mason, so the attorney filed a lawsuit in 2003 and contacted the FBI. The agency quickly discovered he had committed bank fraud. Those interviewed in “Dirty Pop” say that Pearlman’s airline never had planes, that he fabricated an accounting firm, and that he forged bank statements and tax returns.
In early 2007, Pearlman narrowly escaped an FBI raid on his office and home in Orlando, Florida, by fleeing the country with Johnson. But that June, he was arrested in Bali.
He pleaded guilty in an Orlando court to charges of conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding. Johnson says Pearlman phoned him “literally every day from prison,” although Johnson frequently didn’t answer. Pearlman told his former protégé about being the prison's bandleader and “choir leader for the Christmas show.”
'Let's do it again':Justin Timberlake reunites with NSYNC for first performance in 11 years
Pearlman died Aug. 19, 2016, of an infection after surgery to replace a heart valve. He was 62.
It's tempting to quote the 'N Sync song for which the docuseries is named and ask Johnson, “Do you ever wonder why” Pearlman did the things he did?
“Through the boy bands, all of a sudden, he was this really cool guy, which he had never been before,” Johnson says. “Obviously, there's the sociopath/narcissist side of the story, of course. It doesn't exist without that. But I think the root of it was just wanting to be liked and having friends and people looking at him and respecting him in a way that he had never been able to accomplish just by himself.”
