Backstreet Boys faced with astonishing pay cheque after ‘begging’ manager for money and he spoke about his futile efforts

The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were two of the biggest boybands of the nineties and noughties, but they were left horrified by their pay cheques

Members of the iconic boy bands Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were reduced to “begging” their former manager for money, despite soaring to fame under his guidance.

Lou Pearlman, affectionately dubbed “Poppa Lou” by the artists he managed, is widely regarded as the architect of the boyband craze that swept through the nineties and early noughties. He was the force behind the creation of the Backstreet Boys and then replicated his success with NSYNC under his TransCon label.

In his tell-all book, ‘Bands, Brands, and Billions’, Pearlman recounted: “Success breeds competition. I remember joking with one of my employees back then, ‘if Backstreet becomes a dominant brand like Coke, someone is going to come along and create a Pepsi, we might as well beat them to it.'”.

Despite generating massive profits for Lou, the band members themselves have disclosed that their earnings were meagre in comparison to the revenue they generated. Chris Kirkpatrick from NSYNC said on Netflix’s documentary ‘Dirty Pop: The Boyband Scam’ that there was a time when he earned a mere $10,000 (7,728.61) over an entire year, even though their albums had gone gold.

He recounted: “I looked down and I’m like $10,000 dollars, I have never seen that much money in my entire life. Then the smart one, named JC was like ‘how much do you make in a year at Outback? ‘ and I was like ‘oh s***’.”

Archival footage also captured Backstreet Boys’ Brian Littrel as he spoke about his futile efforts to secure fair compensation from Pearlman, saying: “I literally begged him, physically in his office to make it right and he didn’t do it.”

Kirkpatrick explained the moment the bands realised action was needed, saying: “There’s something incredibly wrong, why are we still working our butts off for nickels and dimes, and Lou is making millions? That was when we realised we have to do something drastic.”

Littrel took the initiative to hire a legal expert to delve into the matter while Pearlman seemed to be raking in millions from the bands. This prompted the Backstreet Boys to file a lawsuit against Pearlman, with NSYNC following in their footsteps.

NSYNC managed to reach an out-of-court settlement with Pearlman in 1999 after he launched a counter-lawsuit against them. The Backstreet Boys had already secured settlements in the previous year. Despite this, Pearlman walked away with a hefty $64 million (£49 million).

Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean reflected on the betrayal, stating: “We really admired Lou and looked up to Lou. Until everything started to come out.”

Pearlman’s empire toppled in 2006 when they was uncovered the longest-running Ponzi Scheme in American history, defrauding investors of over $1 billion. An estimated $300 million (£232m) remains unaccounted for.