Lance Bass says *NSYNC earnings were 'hardly at all'

Okay, so.

Reported by Page Six: Lance Bass says his time in *NSYNC was not the payday everyone assumes. He said on The Zach Sang Show that his daily stipend was $35, and his first real paycheck, after years at the top of the charts and selling out arenas, was $10,000.

Bass recalled being told, "You should be grateful for that. You've been working for free for two, three years now."

"People think I'm so filthy rich from *NSYNC, but no," he said. "I didn't make money with *NSYNC, like, hardly at all."

Now 47, Bass says he collects residuals but "it's not much." He said the real money went to "the label" and manager Lou Pearlman, who was convicted of fraud and died in prison in 2016.

This isn't the first time Bass has talked about this. In 2023, he told SiriusXM, "We were famous, but we were not rich."

It's a familiar story from the boy-band era: the talent gets the fame, the label gets the fortune. Bass says he's not bitter, but the numbers are hard to ignore.

• boy band
• earnings
• Lance Bass
• Lou Pearlman
• NSYNC
• The Zach Sang Show