On The Meredith Vieira Show this past Wednesday (Oct. 7), Lance Bass made some controversial comments about sexual harassment and how it "happens to men too," in the wake of Ashley Judd's revealing commentary that she was harassed a male studio executive to Variety.
While it had long been suspected that former manager of the Backstreet Boys and N'SYNC, Lou Pearlman, had some seriously shady qualities and eventually fled the country after embezzling $300 million before he was caught and put in prison, colleagues have also reported that Pearlman had a love for young, attractive male singers that went deeper than music.
While Bass did not mention Pearlman by name he did express that sexual harassment was a two way street by saying on The Meredith Viera Show, "This happens to men, too. When I was 16, 17 years old, there was someone we worked with that was inappropriately touching us. I was even aware at 16 that this guy was a pedophile and he was touching me oddly." One can only imagine who he might be referring to even though he didn't openly drop hints or name names.
When asked if he ever told anyone, Bass said, "No. With the guys we would talk about it, joke about it, even though it's not a joking matter. I didn't feel victimized at the time because I was very aware of it," and so it seems that many members of N'SYNC and perhaps the Backstreet Boys may have had a similar experience but treated it more lightly than, for example, the multiple women who recently came forward about Bill Cosby.
The former N'SYNC member did have a need to explain his commentary later on on his SiriusXM show, Dirty Pop with Lance Bass to specify that, "no one was molested that I know of," but further said, "I even knew it at 16, 17 that, 'This isn't right. No man should be touching a teenager like this," but also expressed that he felt lucky to be aware of it at the time.
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