Lance Bass Earned More Money After NSYNC Split; Says They Were Famous But 'Not Rich'

Despite NSYNC's massive success, Lance Bass said he and his fellow members did not actually make that much money while in the band.

Bass, 43, recently appeared on SiriusXM's "The Jess Cagle Show," where he was asked about the best part of "being rich and famous really young."

Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake and Joey Fatone were only teenagers when NSYNC made its debut in 1995 and quickly rose to fame. But while the band sold millions of records and went on several tours, Bass said he earned more money after NSYNC broke up in 2002 than he did during his time as a member of the group.

"Well, the worst thing is people thinking that we were rich, because we were not," Bass said with a chuckle. "We were famous, but we were not rich. I made way more money after NSYNC than I did during NSYNC."

The band's creator and manager, Lou Pearlman, mishandled the group's finances, Entertainment Tonight reported. He faced lawsuits from several members of different boy bands for allegedly cheating them out of what they had earned. Pearlman, who died in August 2016 at the age of 62, had been convicted of multiple fraud charges.

"He really took a majority of all of our stuff... [made] horrible, horrible deal," Bass added.

Despite this, he was thankful to have gained four brothers and a "great support system."

"To do that, with those guys, it was incredible. And you had some of the best experiences ever. Obviously, it changed my life, led me to so many things I wanted to do in life... they're incredible, incredible guys," Bass said.

He continued, "I'm glad I was in a band because I had four of my brothers that kept you down to earth, right? If you said anything off the wall, they would just slap you down like, 'What did you just say?' But if you're a solo artist, you're always like, 'Yes, yes, yes.' You're the boss. That's it. You kind of get this Michael Jackson syndrome of not knowing what reality is. But with a group, we had a great family unit around us, we were held down to earth."

NSYNC's last record was released in 2002 before they went on an indefinite hiatus. They reunited in 2018 for their Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.

In 2021, Fatone expressed interest in making a new album with his former bandmates two decades after the group disbanded.

"I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, it would be fun. Why not? I mean, let's be real here. It wasn't broke," Fatone told Us Weekly. "Everybody kind of separated to do their own thing and now we've done our own thing and still doing our own thing, but you know what, I think it'd be kind of fun to do something like that and get back together."