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Backstreet’s back! And so is Nsync, O-Town, and all of Lou Pearlman’s other boy bands (and his crimes) in hit Netflix docuseries “Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam.”

If that all sounds familiar, it is probably because this already happened: In 2019, Nsync member Lance Bass released “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story.”

This one, directed by David Terry Fine and executive produced by Pearlman-boy-band band-boy Michael Johnson, who is also one of the main on-camera participants, is a three-part documentary series employing a very present-day storytelling device.

Pearlman serves as the narrator of the 2024 doc about his misdeeds. That was complicated by the fact that Pearlman has been dead for nearly eight years. Enter actor Chris Banks — or at least his mouth — and a healthy dose of machine learning.

“Lou 2,” as Fine calls his monster as you see it on screen, is built on the base of a real Pearlman video.

Sony label TriStar Pictures has acquired an untitled feature film about Nsync superfans who followed the boy band on tour in 2001, packed in a Winnebago bought with prize money from “The Price Is Right.”

Lance Bass, who first teased the project to Variety out of SXSW last year, is producing through his eponymous company along with Cindy Cowan.

Pitched as “Girls Trip” meets “Pitch Perfect,” the film is based on the true story of two best friends from Park City, Utah, who used game show earnings to buy a motor home and travel the U.S. to catch Bass and company — Justin Timberlake, Jc Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick — on their fourth and final national tour.

The project was preemptively brought in by TrisStar Pictures head Nicole Brown, from an original concept by Bass.

Bass made his producing debut with “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story,” which...

The catchy songs. The bold fashion statements. The poster-ready faces. Boy bands tend to have a squeaky-clean image when they first make their well-choreographed debut, eliciting the screams of millions of devoted fans. But many boy bands' backstories harbor dark scandals, including lawsuits, in-fighting and substance abuse issues. 'N Sync member Lance Bass' YouTube Originals documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story pulled the curtain back on the deception his mega-group and others were the victims of, detailing the betrayal of their beloved-manager-turned-enemy Lou Pearlman, who died in prison in 2016.  In the film, the truth behind the very real rivalry between...

Several prominent documentary producers lauded the fact that the medium has seen a major resurgence in recent years during Variety’s TV Summit on Wednesday.

“People are starving for the truth,” said Lance Bass, former Nsync member and producer of the documentary “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story.” “It’s crazy how all of our stories are all about lying and people are gravitating to this lie they want to believe. If you give them any excuse, they are going to believe it wholeheartedly. It’s a weird time right now. You can prove that this is wrong but they still won’t believe it, so it’s important for us to tell our stories just to combat that any way we can.”

The panel, moderated by Variety‘s Daniel Holloway, also featured Leah Remini, executive producer and host of the A&e docuseries “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath;” Danny Gabai,...

Alex Piper has been named YouTube’s head of unscripted, North & South America, the company announced on Monday.

Piper, who most recently served at Fox as vice president of alternative entertainment, steps in for former unscripted boss Ben Relles, who moved to a role overseeing interactive content last week.

He will lead all efforts in conjunction with top creators to develop and produce unscripted programming, as well as having oversight of all live entertainment events. His focus will also include music projects and celebrity partnerships.

Also Read: YouTube Originals Unscripted Boss Ben Relles Gets New Role as Head of Innovation

“Alex Piper is a seasoned award winning reality programming executive with amazing taste and strong relationships who is incredibly well respected in the industry,” said Susanne Daniels, global head of original content for YouTube. “We are thrilled to have him join Youtube and bring his expertise to our diverse programming slate.

Alex Piper is joining the YouTube Originals team as head of unscripted, North and South America, leaving Fox Broadcasting after five years.

Piper takes over the job at YouTube from Ben Relles, who moved into a new role as YouTube’s head of innovation, overseeing interactive programming. Both Piper and Relles report to Susanne Daniels, global head of original content at YouTube.

At YouTube, Piper will lead all efforts with creators to develop and produce unscripted programming spanning formats and genres, including, talk, action, romance, horror and sci-fi. He will oversee all live entertainment events for YouTube. Piper’s focus also includes music and celebrity projects, working in conjunction with YouTube’s partnerships and music teams.

He joins YouTube from Fox where he most recently served as VP of alternative entertainment where he led development for a myriad of special events and series including “So You Think You Can Dance,...

Think you know everything about 'N Sync? Think again. On Wednesday morning, Lance Bass stopped by Daily Pop to discuss YouTube premium's The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, a documentary about "one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in American history." Specifically, boy band impresario Lou Pearlman conned countless people out of money—including the A-listers he represented. "So many people in Orlando lost their entire life savings over this man," Lance, who serves as one of the film's producers, knowingly stated. Thus, it was understandable when Daily Pop co-host Justin Sylvester inquired about the specific sum Pearlman swiped from Bass. While the former boy bander admitted...

Backstreet Boys appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday to perform two songs, a new single and an enduring hit from the ’90s.

The long-running boy band first sang “No Place,” a touching ballad from their latest album DNA, released in January. (The music video features the band members with their families.) They followed that performance with a rendition of their 1997 hit “As Long as You Love Me.”

Earlier this month, Backstreet Boys released a documentary on YouTube, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, about how the man...

If you grew up in the '90s, then - whether you liked it or not - you were probably caught up in the boy band craze. However, most people's knowledge of the scene at that time only extended to what could be found in the pages of TigerBeat and Ym, and few knew of the man who was orchestrating it all: notorious record producer and fraudster Lou Pearlman. Best known for managing '90s hit machines the Backstreet Boys and *Nsync, Pearlman was later revealed to be running one of the most epic and long-running Ponzi schemes in history, and in 2008, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding.

Pearlman died from cardiac arrest while he was still serving out his 25-year sentence in 2016, but thanks to the forthcoming YouTube Originals documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, the extent...

The boy band craze of the mid-1990s through the early-2000s may have seemed like a gift from the music gods, but we're afraid to say it wasn't quite the inexplicable phenomenon it appeared to be. YouTube Originals is releasing a documentary, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, that will take a look into the life of the record producer and fraudster who managed some of the biggest boy bands of the time, including the Backstreet Boys and *Nsync. Some may only know him as the music mogul who launched dozens of careers, but here's everything you need to know about how Pearlman actually launched one of the most epic and long-running Ponzi schemes in history.

Rather than the music industry, Pearlman got his start in the blimp business when he convinced the brothers behind Jordache to lease a blimp from his company (even though he had...

Bad news, '90s boy band fans - YouTube Originals is releasing a documentary that's going to change the way you listen to the Backstreet Boys and *Nsync forever, and not in a good way. Including a series of revealing interviews with '90s pop stars Lance Bass, Jc Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Aj McLean, Aaron Carter, and Ashley Parker Angel, among others, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story will tell the story of the record producer and fraudster who was at the center of the boy band craze. Pearlman may have experienced an epic rise to fame, but the end of his life was definitely far from glamorous.

For those who aren't familiar with Pearlman and his schemes, his career in the music industry began when his blimp business literally crashed and burned. He pitched the idea of a charter plane service called Trans Continental Airlines to investors,...

After making its world premiere earlier this month at the SXSW Film Festival, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story has set a limited theatrical run in Los Angeles and New York ahead of its April 3 debut on YouTube.

The Pilgrim Media Group and Lance Bass Productions’ YouTube Original feature documentary will premiere March 27 at ArcLight Cinema in Sherman Oaks and March 29 at AMC 34th St. in New York City. Screenings in both cities will be followed by panels and Q&As featuring Lance Bass, director Aaron Kunkel as well as other cast members and special guests.

The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story tracks the life of boy band impresario Lou Pearlman from his childhood in Queens, New York through discovering mega-bands the Backstreet Boys and *Nsync, and chronicles his later life, including his perpetration of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history.

The docu...

Most film festivals will dot their documentary lineups with the occasional music-focused title or two; SXSW has an entire sidebar devoted to them. It makes perfect sense that, having sprung from the Austin-based event’s origins as a showcase for bands and the chance for college-radio D.J.s and rock journalists to drink a brewery’s worth of beer, the cinematic arm of South by Southwest would have added a “24 Beats Per Second” program early on in its existence. And while we’re certainly biased — see: the publication you...

Former Nsync member Lance Bass has produced a new documentary film called The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, which was directed by Aaron Kunkel. Bass and Kunkel discussed their new film — which premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas this week — exclusively with uInterview at the festival. The movie documents the rise and fall […]...

In our daily news show, Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos checks in on a few of the headlines everyone is discussing. For today’s episode, watch the video to get a quick take on:

Beto is back! Hilarious Bel Air trailer reimagines The Fresh Prince as a dramatic movie First trailer for The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story doc Song of the Day: Sigrid, “Don’t Feel Like Crying”

Tune in each day for a new episode.

Filmmaker Aaron Kunkel fashions an absorbing true-crime narrative with a danceable beat from the testimonies of exploited pop celebrities, bilked investors, criminal investigators and not-so-quietly aghast onlookers in “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story.” Briskly efficient in its construction and execution, the documentary, which will be available to YouTube Premium subscribers starting April 3, focuses on the high times and low dealings of the Orlando-based music impresario and Ponzi scheme swindler who famously launched the groups *Nsync and Backstreet Boys — and infamously used their success to provide a patina of legitimacy for his complex web of bank and investor fraud.

Kunkel demonstrates his own instinct for showmanship by starting his story in the early 1990s, when Pearlman — a small-time, Queens-born wheeler-dealer who reinvented himself in Florida as head of an air-charter business — culled two groups of teenage hunks from the ranks of young entertainers at Disney World and other Orlando-area tourist attractions,...

The story of boy band Svengali turned Ponzi schemer Lou Pearlman is the focus of an upcoming YouTube documentary. In the first trailer for The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, former boy banders discuss how, despite selling millions of records and selling out arenas, the mastermind behind the pop groups ripped off the young singers.

“Things were going great for us, this was going to be our first check presentation,” N’Sync’s Lance Bass says in the trailer. “I open up the envelope, I see the check and oh my gosh,...

Disgraced music manager and Ponzi scheme perpetrator Lou Pearlman created the Motown of pop music in the early aughts. He launched two iconic bands, Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync, pitted them against each other for profit and stole millions of dollars from them in the process. Now, former ’N Sync member Lance Bass is ready to talk about how Pearlman did it.

With the documentary “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story,” Bass shines a light on his delirious youth as a teen idol and tells a darker story of the man who made his dreams and the dreams of dozens of young performers come true, often at great cost.

“He was right there at the beginning of the new pop explosion in the late ’90s. He had the vision, and he could’ve had the next Motown if he wasn’t so greedy,” Bass told Variety. The pop...

The late ‘90s and early ‘00s brought about a pop music surge that included boy bands, pop princesses and girl groups. They were the pillars of a golden age of MTV’s Trl and brought about a new brand of fandom among a certain generation of trucker cap-wearing adults. Lance Bass lived through this era as a member of *Nsync, one of the hugest boy bands in the history of pop culture. With the fanatic glitz and glamour of it all, Bass should have lived like a king with stacks of cash, but the new documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story directed by Aaron Kunkel sings a different tune.

Lou Pearlman became a super-producer during the early part of the 21st Century, curating boy bands and girl groups, but it was *Nsync and Backstreet Boys that blew up and served as a foundation of this distinct pop era.