And it seems like the “Can’t Stop The Feeling!” singer is well aware of that fact too, as he took to Twitter on August 21 to mourn the loss of Lou, the man responsible for the creation of ’90s boy bands like NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.
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The cause of death was not disclosed, but he was suffering from diabetes and had a heart condition.
At the time of his passing, Pearlman was serving time for a massive $300 million Ponzi fraud scheme.
In a plea bargain agreement, Pearlman pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering fraud and conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.
Hundreds of lawsuits were filed against him, including one by the Backstreet Boys.
O-Town singer Ashley Parker Angel said it was a shame Pearlman “let greed get in his way”.
Aaron Carter, Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter’s brother, also posted a tweet.
Shortly after the successful creation of the Backstreet Boys in 1996, Lou followed them up with his second boy band, NSYNC. “RIP Lou”, Lance Bass wrote on Twitter. Pearlman was eventually arrested in Indonesia after being tracked down by authorities in June of 2007.
His luck continued when he went on to form Justin Timberlake’s group N’SYNC, who went on to take the pop crown from the Backstreet Boys.
Pearlman later managed other boy bands such as LFO, Take 5, Natural and O-Town, and the girl group Innosense, which initially featured Britney Spears.
Included in the victims of Pearlman’s scam were his friends, family and retirees, Sharp said, and he agreed to reduce Pearlman’s sentence by one month for every $1 million returned. It was then when the reality show contestants first began to question Lou’s motives as a businessman. Pearlman was convicted in 2008, a year after he declared bankruptcy, and two years after his scheme unraveled.
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It was revealed that Pearlman was raking in insane amounts of money for their work, but they weren’t getting a fair cut.
