Joey Fatone Exposes Toxicity of Boy Band Business With New Docuseries
NSYNC singer Joey Fatone in 'Boy Band Confidential.'
Courtesy of Investigation Discovery
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There are few people more qualified to take a hard, unflinching look at the complicated world of ‘90s boy bands than Joey Fatone.
The NSYNC singer had a front-row seat to a defining cultural moment of the ‘90s and 2000s, and now, he wants others to know what really happened, executive-producing Boy Band Confidential, a two-part Investigation Discovery doc that just finished airing Tuesday night.
“Why not now?” Fatone tells The Hollywood Reporter with a chuckle at the top of our Zoom conversation when asked about the timing. “The ‘90s are back in a sense of nostalgia. People are digging deep into that, we’re reliving things again. I think fans have heard some stories — we know the Lou Pearlman story. But there’ve been so many times I’ve talked to the guys from the other groups, and we’ve always had these candid conversations. I always thought it’d be good to tell their stories. Not just what the record company or management or whatever company did to them — what did they do in their lives?”
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Boy Band Confidential is wide-ranging, featuring the likes of Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean, NSYNC’s Lance Bass, Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman, 98 degrees’ Nick Lachey and O-Town’s Ashley Parker Angel, among others. Through those subjects, the series touches on the archetypes that are all but commonplace with the dark side of the music industry, including tackling addiction, racism, sexual abuse, and gun violence.
“There’s definitely a common ground with all of us in the sense of the feelings and stress, and the highs and the lows of performing,” Fatone says. “But I thought it was important that we show that everybody had a different path and different story. With some of these guys, we’re going all the way back to pretty much when they were born.”
Fatone and longtime managerJoe Mulvihill, who also produced the documentary, says the boy band members were reluctant at first about sharing their stories on camera, but that they trusted Fatone as one of their peers, a crucial step in getting the project off the ground.
“It was very therapeutic for them,” Fatone says. And you saw them open up even more because the fact that I’m talking to them, we’re on the same ground.”
As Mulvihill adds: “We told them what we were doing, and they knew Joey would be there. They knew I wouldn’t allow something to go out that would make them look however they don’t want to look like. We felt like it was important to get gain the trust, which we had over the years.”
The Take 5 boy band, here with Lou Perlman (center): brothers Ryan and Jeff “Clay” Goodell, Tilky Jones, Stevie Sculthorpe, and Tim “TJ” Christofore.
Courtesy of Investigation Discovery
Speaking with THR, ID President Jason Sarlanis praised Fatone’s production work, adding that the series only came from “his ability to amass this who’s who of talent coming forward and creating this almost mega boy band to tell these stories.”
Stockman and Morris looked back on the fatal shooting of their tour manager, Khalil Roundtree, who was killed in 1992 while the band was opening for MC Hammer on the Too Legit To Quit Tour. AJ McLean opened up about his struggle with staying sober; Brad Fischetti of the group LFO opened up about how all three of his former bandmates died from 2010 to 2023. In the second episode, Fatone himself opens up about nearly going bankrupt post NSYNC.
“I’m literally trying to figure out what I have to do with my family, I’m moving my family into my parents’ house, I had to figure out how to support my ex wife and my kids,” Fatone says. “Not everybody wants to talk about that.”
Unsurprisingly, some of the most notable stories in the series surround Pearlman, who launched and managed the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC and was eventually imprisoned after stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in a ponzi scheme. Pearlman faced claims of molestation for years, though he consistently denied those allegations.
This isn’t the first time a documentary has zoomed in on Pearlman’s transgressions, with 2024’s Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam and Lance Bass’s 2019 “T