They were the biggest boyband on the planet, selling out arenas and shifting millions of records

But while fans screamed and swooned over the five members of NSYNC, they were actually being swindled out of millions – by their own manager.

Revered as the pop kingmaker in the 1990’s, Lou Pearlman had been the brains behind the best-selling boyband of all time, The Backstreet Boys, with record sales of 130million.

And he had used the same formula with NSYNC, bringing a group of unknown performers – among them Justin Timberlake –  together, then catapulting them to stardom.

Yet despite becoming teenage pin-ups around the world, with their first album selling 10million copies, the five singers received no money during their first three years, unaware they were victims in a massive multimillion dollar scam.

When they finally got their first cheques the boys, expecting to see six figures or more after sell-out tours and a No7 album, were shocked to open the envelopes and find they were getting paid just $10,000 for three years’ hard work.

The figure was revealed in a new YouTube documentary, The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman story, directed by one of the band’s former members, Lance Bass, now 39.

Lance recalled: “I open up the envelope, I see the cheque, and oh my gosh, my heart sunk.

“I couldn't believe the number I was looking at. The cheque was US$10,000.

"And not to sound ungrateful… but when you compare it to how many hours we had put into this group for years, it didn't even touch minimum wage. At all."

Another NSYNC member, JC Chasez, told of his shock at receiving the figure, after years of getting just a small daily allowance to live on.

He said: “Basically, we thought it was a normal thing to get 'food money' and then we thought essentially at the end of the road there would be some magical big cheque.”

It wasn’t long after that Pearlman spectacularly fell from his pedestal as music’s most powerful mogul.

First, the Backstreet Boys brought a lawsuit against him, claiming that while he had made millions the group had received just $300,000 for all of their work.

Global superstars by then, band members claimed they were being paid so poorly they couldn’t keep up payments on their cars or pay their rents.

NSYNC then brought their own lawsuit, suing Pearlman for taking more than 50 per cent of their earnings, rather than his promise he would receive only one sixth of the profits, a claim which was eventually settled out of court.

His music career was now in ruins with the majority of the acts he had orked with, including O-Town, LFO, Take 5 and girlband Innosense, had sued him in Federal Court for misrepresentation and fraud, all of which were won or settled out of court.

But his scheme to defraud some of the nineties’ most successful pop acts was just one of the illicit games Pearlman was running.

For more than 20 years, he was also defrauding thousands of investors in a fictitious airline he created in Orlando for more than £300million.

In 2007, the fallen impresario was charged and later sentenced to 25 years for conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding.

He died behind bars from a heart attack in 2016, at the age of 62.

Despite robbing trusting investors, as well as his music stars, of hundreds of millions, Lance said he never felt remorse.

He said: “I don’t think Lou felt bad at all. I think he really believed the world owed him all of this.”

Hot on the back of the Backstreet Boys’ phenomenal success, Pearlman put together NSYNC in 1995, inviting Justin Timberlake to join the group after seeing him on the Disney Channel’s Mickey Mouse Club.

The band received its name after Timberlake’s mother commented on how ‘in sync;’ the group’s singing voices were, and also from the last letter of each of the members’ first names: JustiN, ChriS, JoeY, JasoN and JC.

When one of the band members dropped out, Lance Bass flew to Orlando on a recommendation from Timberlake to try out for the group, remembering how Pearlman met him at the airport with both a Rolls Royce and a limousine.

He said: “You’re not even thinking this guy could be a crook.

“When someone promises you the world, you believe him. Now, if I ever met someone who popped up like a peacock in the beginning, I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re full of s***.”

Pearman’s lies were apparent from the start, but the boys were too blinded by the promise of stardom to see them.

Lance said: “I remember Lou coming to me saying, ‘Well, you know you’ll have a No1 album, right?’ I go, ‘Why?’ He goes, ‘Well, I bought all the albums to make sure.’ 

“He said he bought 250,000 albums to make sure we were No1. I thought, ‘of course he did’.

"I know it’s a complete lie now, but I just thought he was professional and that’s just the way the business worked.”

After signing NSYNC, Pearlman put them in a house, told them they could quit their jobs and started them in a boot camp in an airplane hangar to work on their act.

Band member Chris Kirkpatrick remembered: “I’m surprised none of us got heatstroke. As repetitive and annoying as it got, it was fun.”

Initially he was like a father-figure to the artists he managed, constantly with them as he travelled with them on tour, lived and partied with them.

He would give the band members $35 a day to live on, even though they were quickly filling stadiums and their debut album selling more than 10million records.

His own house, however, was the epitome of luxury, leaving his musical proteges entranced.

O-Town’s Ashley Parker Angel described his Orlando mansion as “like Disneyland”.

He said: "He had this boat with wave runners, this crazy pool, and this private movie theatre and he would have you over and have these boy band parties at his house."

The Backstreet Boys’ AJ McClean recalled: "Nick (Carter) and I had a double birthday party at Lou's house.

"It was a pool party, we invited all our friends. He was that inviting. He made himself more relatable to us by being this grown-up kid."

At the same time, however, Pearlman kept the young band members dreaming of one day having millions to spend like him, but not quite yet.

Lance Bass recalled: “Lou was making it seem like we were in so much debt that it would be a long time before we saw some real money.

“He had a wonderful mansion. He had Rolls-Royces and limos. He’d take you to these lavish dinners and, you know, you’d be thanking him for them.

"Then in the end, you realise, ‘oh my gosh, we’re paying for all those dinners.”

It was only after the NSYNC boys opened the envelopes given to them at a meal with their families at a Los Angeles steakhouse in 1999 that they began to see their manager for what he really was – a fraudster.

Justin Timberlake’s mother, Lynn Harless, told of the moment she realised her son was being robbed by Pearlman.

“Every parent is protective of their child. Like everybody else I just wanted to kill him,” she said.

Justin, who has gone on to have a successful solo career, once said the period as being “financially raped by a Svengali”.

Following the meal, JC Chasez took NSYNC’s contracts to his lawyer uncle, who identified “webs of robbery”.

For instance, Pearlman identified himself as a band member, allowing him to reap 1/6th of their profits.

After settling out of court, the band signed with Jive Records, and their second album, without Pearlman, was a huge success.

It sold a record 2.42million in the first week of release and became the best-selling album of the decade.

It’s title, No Strings Attached, and first released track, Bye Bye Bye, are seen as veiled digs as their controlling former manager.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Pearlman’s luxurious world – and carefully constructed reputation – finally fell apart, when the FBI discovered that he had scammed around 2,100 people of hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing them to invest in a fictional airline, Trans Continental Airlines.

“All of a sudden, things started to make sense,” said Backstreet Boys member AJ McLean.

Pearlman fled to Indonesia but was spotted by German tourists in Bali and arrested.

His career ended in involuntary bankruptcy, nine years before dying of a heart attack while still in jail at the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami.

NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick summed up the mixed emotions at his death felt by his fellow band members: “You don’t know whether to cry, laugh, fell relieved, feel happy for everyone else.

“There was so much wrong with everything about him and what happened that you don’t even know how to take death.”

Lance Bass added: “We would never have gotten a jump start in our career if it wasn’t for him. 

“Then on the other hand, he was a criminal and he did some really, really bad things.”

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