NSYNC in 2000. Via Shutterstock.
Singer and entrepreneur Lance Bass has opened up about an incident during his days with * NSYNC that freaked him out: someone asked him if he was gay.
In a new interview with Vulture, Bass recalls his days as a boy band in honor of the 20th anniversary of * NSYNC’s No Strings Attached album. The album’s release helped cement the group as pop giants, although for Bass, who was still in the closet at the time, the memories of those days bring bittersweet reminders.
While filming the video for the song “It’s Gonna Be Me,” his teammate Chris Kirkpatrick dropped a bomb while asking Bass about his sexuality.
Related: Lance Bass Just Pressed ABC To Make An All-Gay Version Of This Iconic Show
“It was a big day for me because it was the first day someone asked me if I was gay,” Bass recalls. “Chris Kirkpatrick sat me down and said, ‘Hey man, are you gay? No one had ever asked me that.
“I was great in the closet and way too young to even know or care what was going on,” Bass continued. “But I remember panicking so much on this set because it caught me off guard. I’m sure at that point people were wondering – so why don’t you have a girlfriend? It was very brutal. It scared me. I said, ‘No, what are you talking about?’ I wasn’t even telling myself. I was definitely not going to tell Chris.
Six years later, Bass will be on the cover of People magazine. At the time, he also explained that he deliberately waited to come out until * NSYNC was disbanded.
“I knew I was in this popular band and I had the careers of four other guys in hand, and I knew if I ever acted or even said (that I was gay) it would take over. everything, ”he said. . “I didn’t know: Would this be the end of * NSYNC?” So I had that weight on me like, wow if I ever tell someone that’s bad. So I never did.
Now 42 years old, Bass has abandoned his boy band bops for a career as an entrepreneur. He and her husband Michael Turchin together own a popular West Hollywood bar and restaurant. The couple are also expecting surrogate twins, due in October 2021.
