Dirty pop.
Former *NSYNC member Joey Fatone details the dark side of the ’90s boy band world in his new documentary “Boy Band Confidential.”
Fatone, 49, told Page Six that it was “therapeutic” to be able to reflect on those experiences for the doctor.
He explained that industry “pressures” can “build up” and “one day[someone]will either explode or go into a recession, and that could lead to suicide or addiction or whatever the case may be.”
he said: “Life isn’t easy. It’s not easy to go through.”
Fatone and his longtime manager Joe Mulvihill executive produced the ID doc, which interviews former boy band members from the 1990s about their behind-the-scenes experiences.
The article depicts how the industry “puts tremendous pressure on men, and women in general,” Fatone explained.
Fellow *NSYNC member Lance Bass, as well as 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey, Backstreet Boy AJ McLean, and more are included in the document.
Many detail his collaboration with Lou Perlman, the former music manager fraudster behind the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. He died in prison in 2016 while serving 25 years for masterminding a massive pyramid scheme that defrauded 1,700 victims of $300 million.
“We have something in common,” Fatone told Page Six, referring to alumni of other boy bands and likening it to a “fraternity.”
“It’s amazing to see how strong they are,” he said.
He added that they shared a desire to “be the artists I wanted to be,” and that at times they encountered “good things” and “bad things.”
Fatone said he had no intention of “manipulating” the documentary and “going down a dark path” but was willing to go there if people wanted to talk about the film.
“We interviewed each person for about four or five hours. Some of them got sick, so it was a very intense interview at certain times,” he told Page Six.
He singled out former LFO member Brad Fischetti as someone who “broke his heart” when discussing former bandmates who died before the age of 50 (Rich Cronin died of leukemia at age 36, Brian Gillis died of undisclosed cause of death at age 47, and Devin Lima died of cancer at age 41).
Fatone himself made mistakes with his finances after a successful career and nearly went bankrupt around 2010.
Mulvihill told Page Six that when a member of a boy band gets a “huge spotlight,” everyone thinks, “Your life is perfect.
“Every time Joey says, ‘Hey, my finances are a little messed up,'[the reaction]would be, ‘Really, hey, I just did this on MTV. Or really? Hey, I was[performing]in front of 300,000 people in Brazil.'”
Mulvihill told Page Six that they didn’t have “a lot of leeway” “because of the way they live.”
He added that the public is unaware that “normal daily life is happening behind the curtain.”
“We all make mistakes,” Fatone told Page Six.
“What do you do with those mistakes and how do you get out of them? That’s why I want to tell a lot of those stories.”
“Boy Band Confidential” will air on Tuesday, April 14th at 9pm on ID and stream on HBO Max.
