He once claimed he’d discover the next Justin Timberlake upon his anticipated 2029 release from prison, but on Friday, former Backstreet Boys manager Lou Pearlman died in federal custody.
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Lou Pearlman’s death has generated a lot of complicated feelings among pop fans, as well as those from whom he worked as a manager, svengali and in many cases a legal opponent.
AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell, went on to become one of the bestselling boy bands of all time, with 130 million record sales worldwide. Timberlake tweeted, “I hope he found some peace”. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
But for years, Pearlman used falsified documents and statements to convince investors to put money into Trans Continental Airlines Services Inc. and Trans Continental Airlines Inc., his companies which did not physically exist.
Lou Pearlman, iconic American music industry mogul, has died at the age of 62.
‘NSync singer Lance Bass tweeted, “He might not have been a stand-up businessman, but I wouldn’t be doing what I love today without his influence”. Pearlman saw a fall from grace, however, in 2006, when it was revealed he was running a Dollars 300 million Ponzi scheme through his Trans Continental companies. “RIP Lou”, while Chris Kirkpatrick wrote: “Mixed emotions right now, but RIP Lou Pearlman”.
Shortly after the successful creation of the Backstreet Boys in 1996, Lou followed them up with his second boy band, NSYNC.
“Some guys joked about it; I remember [one singer] asking me, ‘Have you let Lou blow you yet?'” Steve Mooney, Pearlman’s live-in assistant of two years, told Vanity Fair’s Bryan Burrough.
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Aaron Carter, another former Pearlman client, stated that “karma is real” in his reaction to Pearlman’s death.
