Backstreet Boys Were ‘Blindsided’ By Lou Pearlman’s Scams—Everything They Said About Their Former Manager

They called him “Big Poppa” but after a couple of years of being in the shadows of management, they were let down by the man who launched them into fame. Backstreet Boys became Lou Pearlman ‘s first successful boy band project, but a series of discoveries led to his downfall.

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The aviator enthusiast recruited the five boys after seeing the rise of New Kids On The Block. He set up an advertisement seeking the next big thing in boy bands. With a ton of practice and exposure to foreign countries, Nick Carter, AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell skyrocketed to become the best-selling boy band in history.

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The five members ended up filing a lawsuit that they had only received $300,000 since 1993, while Pearlman made $10 million. The group parted ways with Pearlman’s management and many of the members still hold some feelings about the situation up until today after his death .

“There would be no ‘NSync, there would be no Backstreet Boys without Lou, period,” McLean says in Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam . “But some of us still have wounds that have never healed and may never heal.”

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