Boy Band mogul Lou 'Big Poppa" Pearlman assembled pop super groups N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys.
Vanity Fair magazine recently did an article on Lou Pearlman regarding his career and the gay molestation charges leveled against him.
Nick Carter's mother is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying: "Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn the other mothers."
According to Pearlman's former assistant Steve Mooney, "Pearlman liked to rub the shoulders and squeeze the arms of boy group hopefuls, he also showed them porn. He liked hanging around good looking younger men and I saw young male singers emerge from his bedroom late at night buttoning their pants."
Mooney adds, "All the talent knew what Lou's games were, if they said no, they're lying to you." Pearlman also liked to jump naked on their beds in the middle of the night.
And for any number of young men who sought to join the world's greatest boy bands, Big Poppa's attentions were an open secret, the price some paid for fame.
"Some guys joked about it; I remember [one singer] asking me, 'Have you let Lou blow you yet?'" "I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator.
NSYNC member "Lance [Bass] ... admitted he found Pearlman "odd." "Well, you can just tell, you know, he was ... I mean, I knew I was gay when I was 16, when I was 5 years old. So, something told me that he might me be also. I just figured out he was gay," Bass said.
Mooney shared his concerns with his father who joined him and Lou for dinner. While they ate, Mooney alleges that Lou kept putting his hand on his leg.
Afterwards, he was surprised when his father said, "Lou seemed OK." According to Mooney, 'he was blinded by money and fame.'
To a number of his former band members, Pearlman seemed so enamored of his male singers that it called into question his motivations for entering the music business in the first place. "Honestly, I don't think Lou ever thought we would become stars," says Rich Cronin, lead singer of the Pearlman boy band Lyte Funky Ones (LFO). "I just think he wanted cute guys around him; this was all an excuse. And then lightning crazily struck and an empire was created. It was all dumb luck. I think his motives for getting into music were very different."
Lou Pearlman was arrested in Indonesia in June 2007 for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.
I've been reading up on the Lou Pearlman stuff. This guy actually got popped for one of the longest running ponzi's in history, selling shares to a company which existed only on paper.
ReplyDeleteI think that most of those boys probably were willing to let him blow them for the fame they eventually received. I would have probably too if I knew it was going to get me fame and fortune.
Let's face it, the guy was not attractive to anyone, gay, straight, whatever. He was disgusting looking.