10 boy bands and singers who were discovered by Lou Pearlman, the disgraced music manager who inspired the new docuseries 'Dirty Pop'

• Lou Pearlman was a music manager best known for launching the careers of *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.
• He also signed artists like Aaron Carter and O-Town to his label, Trans Continental Records.
• Pearlman's controversial career is explored in the new Netflix docuseries "Dirty Pop."

Lou Pearlman has been described as a boy band whisperer who launched the chart-topping careers of *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.

Pearlman signed both groups to his record label, Trans Continental Records, in the '90s. Bolstered by their success, he continued discovering and cultivating talent, signing new groups and singers through the decade — even as his reputation crumbled.

Pearlman was sued by several signees for misappropriation and concealment of revenue. Justin Timberlake famously said that working with Pearlman was like "being financially raped by a Svengali."

Eventually, Pearlman's shady business practices caught up with him. He was implicated in a $300 million Ponzi scheme , arrested in 2007, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering, and bankruptcy in 2008.

Pearlman died in 2016 of cardiac arrest while serving his 25-year sentence in a federal prison. He was 62 years old.

Pearlman's controversial career and legacy are the subject of "Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam," which premiered Wednesday on Netflix. The three-episode docuseries includes interviews with Pearlman's former friends and business partners, as well as several boy banders and protégés.

Keep reading for a list of artists whose origins can be traced back to Pearlman.

Backstreet Boys

According to interview clips in "Dirty Pop," Pearlman was inspired to form his own boy band after seeing the success of New Kids on the Block.

Pearlman hand-selected all five members of the Backstreet Boys — Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell, and Kevin Richardson — and bankrolled their early success from his mansion in Orlando.

"Lou had big pockets and he had a dream," McLean says in episode one. "We were the guinea pig for that dream."

The Backstreet Boys released their self-titled debut album in 1996 and their sophomore album, "Backstreet's Back," in 1997 — but didn't achieve commercial success in the US until they left Trans Continental.

In 1997, Littrell sued Pearlman on behalf of the Backstreet Boys, alleging the bandmates had only earned about $12,000 apiece over four years, per Billboard .

The parties eventually settled and renegotiated their contract, which released them from their record deal but allowed Pearlman to continue making money from the band. "I'm the sixth Backstreet Boy," Pearlman said at the time, per Entertainment Weekly . "I always have been, I always will be."

The band signed a new deal with Jive Records and released "Millennium" in 1999, followed by "Black & Blue" in 2000. Both reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 1 million copies in their debut weeks .

*NSYNC

"Dirty Pop" includes an excerpt from Pearlman's memoir "Bands, Brands and Billions," which reveals his rationale for launching *NSYNC while still mentoring the Backstreet Boys.

"If Backstreet ends up being a dominant brand like Coke, someone is going to come along and create a Pepsi," Pearlman wrote. "We might as well beat them to it."

Chris Kirkpatrick is actually credited with forming *NSYNC by recruiting his four bandmates: Timberlake , Joey Fatone , Lance Bass , and JC Chasez. They signed a record deal with Pearlman in the '90s.

"It doesn't matter if the contract is written in raccoon blood," Kirkpatrick says in the docuseries. "You're signing it because it's your deal — it's your shot."

The band released their self-titled debut album in 1997, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified diamond by the RIAA.

However, Pearlman was keeping the lion's share of the profits. According to the bandmates, they spent three years touring and making music while living on an allowance of $35 a day. In 1999, they sued Pearlman and his label for defrauding the group, seeking to be released from their contract.

"The judge in the case was flabbergasted at Pearlman's claim, that according to his contract and ownership of the band name he was *NSYNC, and therefore entitled to 90% of their earnings," The Guardian reported . "She ruled for the band and the implosion of Pearlman's empire began."

In other words, the parties reached an undisclosed settlement and Trans Continental released *NSYNC from their contractual obligations.

The following year, *NSYNC released their first album with Jive, "No Strings Attached." It sold over 2 million copies in its first week and spawned hits like "Bye Bye Bye" and "It's Gonna Be Me."

"After we left Lou, we had a record that was huge," Kirkpatrick says in "Dirty Pop" episode two. "That's when it felt like, 'Now it's our band.'"

The band's final album, "Celebrity," was released in 2001. Like its predecessor, it topped the charts, sold millions of copies, and earned a nomination for best pop vocal album at the Grammys.

O-Town

After Pearlman's label lost both the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, he created and starred in the talent-search competition show "Making the Band."

The first season, which aired on ABC, followed the formation of O-Town. The five-piece group was named after Orlando, where the auditions were held.

"It wasn't a secret that Lou was involved in these legal proceedings with Backstreet and *NSYNC. And I'd be lying if I said there wasn't massive concern from us at the time," O-Town member Erik-Michael Estrada says in "Dirty Pop." "But when are we getting an opportunity like this?"

"Let's just follow him," Estrada added of Pearlman. "He's the blueprint."

O-Town has released four albums to date and earned two top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Liquid Dreams," which peaked at No. 10 in 2000, and "All or Nothing," which peaked at No. 3 in 2001.

Aaron Carter

Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter, released his self-titled debut via Trans Continental in 1997. He was 9 years old at the time.

Carter became a tween-pop sensation with his second album, 2000's "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)," which went triple platinum in the US and spawned hits like "I Want Candy" and "That's How I Beat Shaq."

Two years later, Carter and his family filed a lawsuit against Pearlman , alleging the manager had cheated him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties.

Still, Carter defended Pearlman in the 2019 YouTube documentary " The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story ."

"Lou gave us all the ability to have lives today," Carter said. "Who knows where I would've ended up."

Carter died from a drug overdose in 2022. He was 34 years old.

Natural

One of Pearlman's lesser-known boy bands, Natural never managed to break into the mainstream US market. However, they did find success in Europe in the early aughts. (Their 2004 single "Just One Last Dance" reached No. 1 in Germany.)

Group member Michael Johnson is prominently featured in "Dirty Pop." He calls Pearlman "the greatest showman" and describes how Pearlman used "stolen money" to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Johnson was interested in the business side of the music industry and continued to work with Pearlman after Natural broke up in 2004. In the docuseries, he recalls how they traveled frequently to pitch TV shows and other projects, but admits that nothing ever came of these meetings. He also says he was unaware of Pearlman's illegal activities, like forging documents and lying to investors.

"It turned out that our world travels were actually him being on the run from the FBI," Johnson tells the camera.

Brooke Hogan

According to "Dirty Pop," Pearlman helped launch the music career of Brooke Hogan, Hulk Hogan's daughter, by signing her to Trans Continental.

Her debut single, "Everything to Me," reached No. 97 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Singles Sales chart in 2004 . She went on tour with Hilary Duff and the Backstreet Boys.

Shortly after, Hogan was dropped from the label — possibly due to Pearlman's mounting legal and financial woes .

She went on to star in VH1's reality show "Hogan Knows Best" and teamed up with famed producer Scott Storch to release her debut album, "Undiscovered," in 2006.

Years later, one of Hogan's demo tapes was found among Pearlman's possessions and auctioned in Florida as part of his bankruptcy liquidation, per the Orlando Sentential .

Take 5

Take 5 was formed in 1997 and released two albums: their self-titled debut in 1998 and "Against All Odds" in 2000. They disbanded in 2001, reportedly due to contractual issues with Pearlman.

Tim "TJ" Christofore, one of the group's five members, later alleged that Pearlman was physically inappropriate with the young boys he managed.

According to a 2007 Vanity Fair investigation, Christofore remembered "one sleepover when he and another boy were dozing and Pearlman appeared at the foot of their bed, clad only in a towel… Pearlman performed a swan dive onto the bed, wrestling with the boys, at which point his towel came off."

"We were like, 'Ooh, Lou, that's gross,'" Christofore told Vanity Fair. "What did I know? I was 13."

Christofore recalled a separate instance when Pearlman answered his front door naked. After the Vanity Fair article was published, Pearlman denied all accusations of misconduct.

"I've never owned a towel that could wrap all the way around me anyway," Pearlman told his biographer, Tyler Gray, per Page Six .

Innosense

Pearlman's only girl group briefly featured a young Britney Spears as one of its five members.

Spears left Innosense shortly after it was formed to pursue solo stardom — though according to "Dirty Pop," Pearlman continued to claim credit for her rise to fame.

The remaining members released an album titled "So Together" in 2000, led by the single "Say No More." After opening for both *NSYNC and Spears on tour, the group disbanded in 2003.

One of the group's members, Nikki DeLoach, was interviewed for "The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story." DeLoach said the Innosense girls would often use a tanning bed in Pearlman's house, and said she found out that Pearlman was "recording the whole thing."

She also said Pearlman would show topless images of the girls to his boy banders, calling the experience "pretty darn violating. (Christofore corroborated this during his interview with Vanity Fair.)

LFO

LFO is best known for their 1999 single "Summer Girls" (" I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch / I'd take her if I had one wish"), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was taken from their self-titled debut. The trio released a second album, 2001's "Life Is Good," before disbanding in 2002 .

"Honestly, I don't think Lou ever thought we would become stars," Rich Cronin, the group's lead singer, told Vanity Fair. "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."

B4-4

B4-4 was comprised of identical twins Ryan and Dan Kowarsky and their friend Ohad Einbinder.

The Toronto trio found moderate success with their self-titled debut album, released in 2000, which was certified platinum in Canada. They disbanded in 2004.

The Kowarsky brothers continued as a duo, going by the name RyanDan. In 2013, they spoke to Vice about their time with Pearlman.

"We were with him right before he got arrested and put in jail so we weren't involved with any of that stuff," the brothers said. "But the whole B4-4 thing was a great experience for us. It was a learning experience."

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